Angels and Ballerinas
by Midasgirl
Summary: We’re used to phanfic love triangles. But what if that perennial love triangle became a square? And what if the fourth corner was someone we already know? Would the story have changed … and how might our heroes have behaved differently?
1. Chapter I

A/N –You may read this first chapter – or, indeed, just the summary! – and think that this story deserves to fall under the umbrella heading of Meg/Erik phic. Let me hasten to assure you that it doesn't: it's a (very) little of E/M, a little of R/C, rather more of E/C … but above all, it is just a Megphic. It's about her, from her point of view, and utterly because of her … how anyone can not adore small blonde ballerinas is entirely beyond me. (I am succumbing to the screaming E/C shipper inside me, but those few E/C scenes that we all love so well will be the only non-Meg oriented scenes in the whole phic … as I say, this is _her_ story.)

I've been working on this phic for longer than I ever have on a phic before, and the vast majority of it is already written. It was written _before_ the new movie, so all characterisation and plots should be taken as coming from the musical and the various novels, although there is, I hope, some of Miranda Richardson in Madame Giry (stop that, Steph, don't think I can't see you rolling your eyes across the pond!).

Don't worry if the beginning of this chapter seems confusing: (one of the perils of writing certain scenes before others) by the end of the chapter, all ought to be revealed. (Oh, and anyone who spots the significance of the ballet rats' names will be given cookies :))

This story is for and because of Hayley Driscoll, the only Meg, to whom I owe my characterisation almost entirely.

"Christine Daaé."

There was a pause, broken by the scuffling of feet and a few subdued giggles and whisperings.

Meg Giry kept her head bent as her mother glared around the assembled troop of sugar plum fairies. "Well? Where is she?"

There was silence. Next to her, Meg felt Celia, a small brunette fairy, begin to shake with silent laughter, and dug her swiftly in the ribs: if her mother, already irritable because of Christine's non-appearance, decided that her remaining dancers were behaving frivolously – a word that she used so frequently that one member of the corps had actually looked it up – they could all expect a solid two hours' extra practice on toes that were already sore.

Fortunately for all the girls, the arrival of Poligny – flutteringly nervous and bearing an unfavourable-looking sheaf of documents – distracted Antoinette Giry from her errant charges for long enough for Celia to regain control over herself.

Meg watched her mother growing more and more tight-lipped as Poligny continued to talk excitedly, and was forced to stifle a giggle as he gestured particularly vehemently, sending a pile of sheet music that had sat precariously balanced on the piano flying like a papery snowstorm.

Antoinette silenced his anxious apologies with a glance, her face like stone, and turned back to the assembled girls huddled together. "You are all a disgrace. I suggest that you spend the rest of the day in private rehearsal, or you may all find yourselves unemployed when Monday comes." She emphasised her words with a staccato tap of her cane on the hard wood floor. "Now go, all of you."

She turned back to Poligny as the troop of slightly subdued sugar plum fairies traipsed out of the rehearsal room into the corridor.

For all it could only have been an hour at most, it seemed to Antoinette days before she could manage to usher Poligny out of her room and retire to her office, where she sat down in her high-backed chair, gazing into the dying flames of the fire, and thinking.

She was beginning to be uncomfortable about Christine Daaé's perennial tardiness and increasingly frequent absences from her rehearsals: she was probably the weakest dancer Antoinette had to deal with this season, and would, Antoinette was quite sure, fall further behind with every absence. She was, of course, fully aware of the reason behind these absences; and it irritated her intensely that that reason should be the only man in the Opera House whom she could not drive into cowering submission with a single raised eyebrow.

She was fully aware that the only reason Erik had unbent far enough to her to admit his tutorial relationship with Christine – unthinkable, that he should confess what was already beginning to betray itself in his eyes, that Christine was rapidly becoming more than a student to him! – was that she had, quite unthinkingly, forced his hand herself when she had presented to him the weekly list of administration of the _corps de ballet_, a generally mundane document including the price of the replacement of four pairs of ballet shoes, the sewing bill for a costume that Mary had carelessly torn, and Antoinette's intention to dismiss Christine Daaé at the end of the week.

"_Why did you not inform me that you were thinking of depriving a twenty-year old child of her living?"_

_Antoinette frowned. "I dismiss girls all the time. If we are to retain the unreasonable standards of perfection that you consistently demand, I have no choice but to let go those girls who are not up to the requisite standard." She sighed. "It is a pity. She is a nice enough child, but she's just not strong enough, and she doesn't have the talent she needs to keep up with the other girls."_

_Erik, betraying his agitation by his inability to keep still, had risen from his seat and was now pacing the room._

"_I should prefer for her to remain in employment at the Opéra for the time being," he said expressionlessly._

_Antoinette stood up. "I beg your pardon?"_

"_I would be obliged if you would reconsider your decision to deprive her of her job," he rephrased. He turned to look at her, and she was amazed to see the unaccustomed coldness in his eyes. "But before you do me the courtesy of a judgment, you will please be aware that you have no choice."_

At the time, Antoinette had not been too concerned. Erik had explained that he intended his protégé to leave the _corps_ in time anyway, in order to pursue a career in that area where her true talent lay: her voice.

But now she was beginning to feel frustrated with the situation. She had turned away a dozen girls more talented than Christine at yesterday's auditions, and was still having to accommodate Christine's ineptitude within her _corps_.

But, admitted Antoinette to herself, Christine's clumsiness and frequent mistakes worried her less than a situation that was beginning to seem far more pressing: the possibility that Meg should discover the dawning relationship between Erik and Christine for herself.

It was not, she feared, a discovery that her daughter would take well.

Antoinette wondered briefly where it had all begun; and unexpectedly remembered with a smile the horror on Erik's face when she had arrived on his doorstep in desperation bearing Meg, then a small sturdy blonde child of five.

"_No, Madame, really ... I have no talent with children ..."_

"_She'll be good, I promise, quiet as a mouse ..."_

_It was Meg who settled the debate by handing Erik her rag doll and instructing him with the bossy innocence of youth, "Look after Araminta" before marching into the living room and comfortably settling herself in front of the fire._

_Antoinette, deciding that the matter was closed, quickly gathered up her bag._

"_Thank you, Erik," she said with hasty gratitude. "I'll be back in an hour."_

_She hurried off down the lakeshore, and Erik was left alone at the door holding a scruffy rag doll with shockingly red hair._

_Antoinette hurried back to the Opera House through a light drizzle later that afternoon, feeling the uncomfortable pinprick of guilt begin to gnaw at her insides. The interview had taken longer than she had anticipated, and Meg had now been with Erik for almost two and a half hours. Oh, she trusted Erik implicitly, and had no fears whatever for her daughter's safety; but she was not unaware that Meg was inclined to be boisterous, and she rather feared that Erik might not know how to react if the little girl worked herself up into a screaming tantrum as she was wont to do._

_She was entirely unprepared for the sight that greeted her upon entering the house on the lake._

_Meg was sitting curled up on Erik's lap, her thumb comfortably ensconced in her mouth, the other little hand absently patting Erik's._

_Erik was reading to her in a low, hypnotic voice from a small book bound in blue leather, held loosely in his free hand._

_Antoinette took a step forward into the room and Erik started. Colour flooded into the visible side of his face, and he rose hastily, quickly deposing Meg from his lap._

Antoinette smiled at the remembrance of his embarrassment, his unwillingness to admit his dawning affection for her daughter.

_The meeting that had been so important that day had heralded Antoinette's appointment as ballet mistress of the Opera Populaire. The money that this new job would bring in was a great relief to Antoinette, whose finances had been saved thus far only by her own scrupulous economy, but it did raise the problem of what to do with Meg. Poligny had listened carefully, and had been extremely courteous and sympathetic, but utterly immoveable on this point; Antoinette would not be allowed to bring her small daughter to work._

_Antoinette, desperate to find a solution, ever aware that if she could not find someone to take care of her daughter during working hours, she would have to turn down this opportunity which at present seemed little less than a godsend, finally consulted Erik._

_He listened carefully, asked several pertinent questions, and finally sat down thoughtfully to consider the question, absently tapping his fingers against the edge of the sofa._

_It was he who made the suggestion - albeit tentatively - that Meg should come to him during rehearsal time until a more appropriate substitute could be found. This seemed the perfect solution: Meg would remain close to her mother; it would provide company for Erik, and a male influence in Meg's life. Relieved beyond belief, Antoinette accepted the offer immediately; and although ostensibly she continued to search for another suitable person to take care of Meg, aware that her daughter was happy with the situation as it was, she soon ceased to do so with any urgency or real energy._

Meg's puppy fat had dropped off her as she grew older, and she was developing into a very lovely young woman. She had always been sturdy, and her dancing had made her strong; and although she would always be short, she still tendered what Antoinette privately considered to be an unfortunate propensity for the melodramatic that more than made up for what she lacked in size.

Meg's relationship with Erik had always been the one regular stabilising influence in her life outside her mother. Meg's friends tended to be much like the worst parts of herself: giddy, empty-headed, and tactless; and had it not been for Erik's steady cultivation of her mind and behaviour, Antoinette felt that her daughter's intelligence and wit, which often lay buried beneath a veneer of inane gossip when she was with her friends in the corps, might have gradually slipped away.

Unlike her mother, who had once come upon Erik in a rare unguarded moment that had almost cost her her life, Meg had never seen Erik's face. Antoinette had warned her not to raise the issue long before her daughter had ever met Erik; and the ensuing years of companionship had conditioned her to view the mask as something quite normal, another inexplicable facet of Erik's personality to be accepted without question or answer. She knew it concealed some peculiarity about which he was extremely sensitive; and, with the blinkered affection of youth, was not at all troubled by that knowledge, or driven by curiosity to wish to know more.

Antoinette had always approved of Meg's affection for Erik. But recently, observing her daughter's behaviour around him, and the change in her tone of voice when she spoke about him, she had begun to fear that Erik's unshakeable courtesy, his catlike grace, and his unfailing humour and gentleness had begun to impress themselves upon Meg's mind as agreeable in a different way to ever before. This in itself would not usually have worried Antoinette: attachment was a natural consequence of Meg's age – and God alone knew how silently grateful Antoinette was that Meg had evidently developed sense enough to politely discourage the admirers who filled a different girl's dressing room with roses every night – and, knowing Erik as she did, she would not have objected to a match between him and her daughter, even considering the disparity in their ages.

But Antoinette feared that, even as Erik altered subtly in Meg's eyes every day they spent together, it had never even occurred to him that she was growing up; he had never noticed quite what a beautiful young woman she was becoming. Although he was unfailingly kind to her, and cared for her intensely, Antoinette felt that he had never ceased to see her as the child who had first wound herself around his heart at the age of five with the aid of a grubby rag doll.

For weeks Antoinette had worried about the seemingly inevitable crisis. She could imagine Erik's reaction should she confide her fears to him: horrified by the threat of such unfamiliar territory, she had no doubts that he would retreat into himself and withdraw from Meg entirely; and such unexpected and inexplicable coldness on the part of her dearest friend would, Antoinette knew, crush her daughter utterly.

And so, in the end, she had done nothing. Unable to think of any one course of action that could result in anything other than her daughter's fury and Erik's humiliation, she had resigned herself to preparing for when the situation exploded – as she had no doubt it would, her daughter's melodramatic streak being what it was.

As she sat and watched the fire die in the grate, Antoinette dreaded to think how much more destructive that explosion would be if Meg were to learn that her dearest idol had already fallen hopelessly in love with a chorus girl named Christine Daaé.

The girls made their way back to the ballet corps' dormitory, and there was much squeaking and giggling as they fought for the best seats next to the fire.

Meg caught hold of Celia's arm. "What was wrong with you in rehearsal today?"

Celia shook her head and began to giggle again. "It's nothing," she demurred. "It's just …"

The other girls crowded round, eager now to hear the gossip.

"It was something about Christine," observed Lisa from her seat on Meg's bed. "You started to laugh just when Madame Giry mentioned her."

"What's she done?" asked Anna with curiosity.

"Nothing!" protested Celia. "I promised her I wouldn't tell …"

"Oh, promises promises," said Nicole with cheerful dismissal. "Easily made, easily broken." She beamed and took Celia's hand. "You have to tell us. We're your friends!"

"And hers," added little Robyn enterprisingly.

"Exactly," piped up Katrina, spotting the chink in Celia's resolve. "Why would she mind our knowing about it?"

Meg frowned slightly and withdrew from the centre of the group. Of all the girls, it was she who was closest to the reserved little soprano; and she was beginning to feel uncomfortable at the corps' collectively shameless attempt to uncover a secret that Christine evidently did not want to share.

But it was too late: Celia's already wavering resolution had not survived the onslaught of her friends.

"You must promise not to tell her I told!"

Collective assent. The air became thick with excitement as the girls crowded in closer in a cloud of lace and crinoline: as valuable a commodity as gossip always was, no one had ever fancied there might be anything worth telling about the almost incredibly innocent Scandinavian dancer who frequently seemed to be lost in a world of daydreams, and always appeared utterly bewildered when the conversation moved – as it inevitably did – round to suitors and flowers.

"I was walking past her dressing room yesterday. And …" Celia began to giggle helplessly again. "I heard a _man's voice_!"

A barrage of gleeful disbelief broke out.

"No!"

"Never!"

"_Christine?_"

Disbelief promptly gave way to hilarity.

"And she always seeming so innocent!"

"Are you sure it was her?" Little Robyn this time, doubt creeping into her voice.

Celia nodded furtively, beginning to giggle again. "I caught her coming out and I asked her about it! And she said …" The other girls looked on, bemused, as Celia's voice gave way to helpless laughter. "She said … it was her _singing teacher_!"

It is a curious fact about ballet dancers in general, and short ones in particular, that every sentence they speak is inevitably concluded with an exclamation mark. Celia – being both – was positively awash in punctuation.

The other ballet girls dissolved into squeaks of laughter. Meg was well aware that, should she tell the other girls that Christine did, in fact, harbour secret aspirations to be a singer one day, her words would fall upon utterly deaf ears. She therefore refrained, and slipped quietly out of the dormitory to find her friend.

Meg padded through the Opera House corridor to Christine's tiny dressing room, humming happily to herself, and arrived at Christine's corridor slightly out of breath and intensely grateful – not for the first time – that her mother had managed to secure her a more spacious dressing room than was usually allotted to the corps, one considerably closer to the stage.

It was really no wonder, Meg thought to herself, that Christine was always late for everything. If she were to be meeting a lover – and Meg could not restrain a little snort of laughter at the prospect – her dressing room would certainly be the ideal place, tucked away at the back as it was.

She was unprepared for the sound that greeted her as she approached the door of Christine's dressing room: her friend's voice raised animatedly within. She stopped, consciously putting down the wild thought that flickered through her mind that perhaps Celia had been right.

But however surprised she was by the sound of Christine chattering away, apparently to herself, nothing could surpass her astonishment when she heard a second voice rise in answer … and recognition swept through her.

"You need not be nervous. You will not take her part until you are ready."

A sigh.

"I don't feel I shall ever be ready."

The man's voice again, gentle this time. "But you will be. And you will be the greatest star ever to shine on the Opera's stage.

Meg fell back against the wall, speechless and suddenly light-headed. _She knew that voice_ …

Meg took a deep breath, and moved her bishop.

"I hear you've started tutoring Christine Daaé," she said carefully, looking nervously up into his face.

Erik did not look up, staring at the board with a look of apparently intense concentration on his face. "Indeed." He looked up and smiled. "I decided that it was unreasonable to expect you to attempt to dance any longer to the strains of La Carlotta." He glanced back at the board and moved a pawn, not meeting her eyes. "Your friend is very talented."

Meg twirled a curl nervously around her finger, pushing a knight a few spaces without really thinking. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked finally.

Erik glanced up at her. "I'm sorry?"

"That you'd started teaching Christine. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah." Erik looked back down at the board and moved a bishop two squares. "I wasn't aware you'd be interested."

Meg looked down at her feet, unaccountably hurt. "I'm always interested," she mumbled.

There was a brief pause, before Erik rose to his feet and laid a paternal hand on her shoulder.

"Meg, I'm sorry," he said gently. "I didn't realise you would mind."

There was a long, intense silence, in which Meg felt something shiver, deep inside her. She was on the point of reaching up to cover his hand with her own, when he withdrew his hand and sat down again. He made a gesture towards the chess board, taking refuge in the easy world of pawns and queens, and she knew that the subject was closed.

"Have you heard?"

Madame Giry glanced up from her book. "Mmm?"

"About Erik's newest project! He's started tutoring Christine, of all people!"

Madame Giry closed the book and laid it down on the table. "Meg ..." she said carefully, patting the seat beside her. "Come and sit down. I want to talk to you."

Meg nodded and sat down, slightly confused.

"I don't want you to discuss this with Erik, all right?"

Meg nodded slowly. "All right ..."

"I think you ought to be careful how you discuss their relationship … especially with the rest of the corps. I don't think they ought to know about it."

Meg laughed, relieved. "They don't really have a relationship, Mother. He's just tutoring her because he says Carlotta's an embarrassment." She beamed. "You know how seriously he takes the Opera."

Madame Giry sighed. Better that her daughter should hear the news that was to invert her world from her than from anybody else, she thought with weary resignation. "Meg, I don't think you've quite grasped the situation." Seeing her daughter frown with confusion, she clarified, "He isn't just teaching her for the good of the Opera." There was a pause. "He's in love with her."

"_What?_" Meg stood up blindly, feeling faint. She forced a laugh. "Mother, I'm afraid you've caught the wrong end of the stick entirely. He's just interested in her voice, that's all!"

Madame Giry shook her head gently, her face compassionate. "I'm sorry, my dear."

Meg sat down, more surprised now than annoyed. "Why do you think he's in love with her?"

Her mother looked warily at her, as if wondering just how much she should tell her. "Have you ever heard the music he writes for her?"

Meg looked up again, feeling as though she might be sick. "He doesn't write for her, Mother, it's for his opera," she said, a little too quickly. "He's been working on it for years now, it's terribly good; he's probably just trying out a few of the songs on Christine."

Deep inside, the revelation that he was allowing Christine to sing his music hurt Meg very much; she herself had largely given up asking Erik to play his music to her after years of gentle but firm refusals which brooked no argument.

Meg felt her mother take her hand.

"Megan," she said gently. "Listen to me. You have been a very good friend to Erik, and nobody knows more than I how much he appreciates it. But what he feels for Christine is _different_ ... I don't think he himself quite understands it yet, and I certainly don't want you asking him about it."

Meg, staring blindly down at her hands, did not see the compassion in her mother's eyes.

"I am sorry, Megan, I would not have had it turn out this way; but Christine has been good for him. You would not condemn him to a lifetime of solitude with only our society to alter the monotony of the days?"

Meg brought one hand slowly to her face, and laid it against her burning cheek. "Is she in love with him as well?" she whispered.

Madame Giry smiled, a little sadly, and took up her book again. "You are her closest friend," she said with maternal logic. "Why don't you ask her?" She turned a page, and Meg saw, inexplicable relief colouring her disappointment, that the conversation was over.

Five storeys below the Opèra, Erik was smiling as he put the final touches to his latest composition. It would be the work of a moment to make his way up to Christine's dressing room and, slipping in through the mirror, to place it on her dressing table.

He touched the page gently, suppressing the flickering torch of delight that lit in his heart as he imagined her touching that same page.

As he neared her dressing room mirror, he was caught off guard and slightly alarmed to see a lamp still burning in the room. Cautiously, still not quite secure even in the certain knowledge that he could not be seen through the mirror, he approached that kindest and cruellest of barriers with apprehension.

The scene that greeted his eyes within was enough to stop his heart and catch his breath in his throat.

Lying curled on the small couch which stood along the back wall was Christine; and even more unendurably lovely in sleep than in wakefulness. His hand pressed unconsciously against the mirror with unexpected yearning, and he shut his eyes, the better to engrave this memory upon the rapidly-melting marble of his heart.

Silently, he slipped through the mirror and laid the sheets of handwritten music on her dressing table, an angelic gift for when she awoke. He knew with a smile how excited she would be to discover it in the morning: further proof that her Angel was all her father had promised he would be.

He did not dare to linger. Silently, he returned to the darkness of the subterranean corridors, allowing himself only one farewell glance at the woman who was rapidly becoming everything to him, and made his way unlit down the paths to his lair, carrying within him the still unfamiliar warmth of love and an unshakeable resolution: tomorrow, she would sing Marguerite.

And tomorrow, he would reveal himself to her.


	2. Chapter II

A/N – And just for those who are interested, fox-gloves mean "a wish". They're also poisonous. Make of that what you will :) Red roses, of course, mean "I love you".

Double cookies to Julie for being the only person to recognise the ballet girls, and lots of love to everyone who's reviewed.

Oh – and only because I forgot last chapter:

**Disclaimer: Gaston Leroux; Andrew Lloyd Webber; Susan Kay; Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit. Anyone you recognise belongs to them. Not mine: don't sue.**

Here presenting chapter two – in which Meg and Erik angst and Ayesha makes her appearance.

"Erik?"

Erik met her at the door. He was dressed to go out, and although he was courteous in receiving her, the momentary flicker of impatience in his eyes let her know that her presence was unwelcome.

"What can I do for you, my dear?"

He ushered her into the sitting room, and gestured for her to sit.

"I need some advice," she began, embarrassed now and unsure how to begin.

He inclined his head politely. "Of course."

"Martin Guise … came to my dressing room again last night," she began nervously. "He asked me to marry him." She saw Erik raise one eyebrow at that, and continued, flushing. "I don't know what to do." She studied her shoes, embarrassed.

"Do you want to marry him?"

She looked up sharply. "No!"

"Then tell him so." Erik spoke in a tone of the utmost simplicity, as though it were self-evidently obvious that Meg should risk offending one of her most influential admirers.

"I can't just …"

"Why not? He is only a man, albeit an extremely rich and vulgar one."

"But …"

"Only a man. Now …" He picked up his cloak and draped it over his arm. "I'm sorry, my dear, but urgent business calls me away."

Meg fidgeted with a fold of her skirt, hurt by Erik's apparent unconcern with her seemingly insoluble problem. "Are you going to see Christine?"

For a fleeting moment, there was a smile in Erik's eyes. "As a matter of fact, I am." He smiled briefly. "She is going to sing Marguerite tonight, you know."

Meg felt as though she had had all the breath knocked out of her. "Marguerite?"

Erik nodded.

"Why?"

The expression in his eyes changed; his voice became a little cooler. "Because she happens to be the most astonishing singer to cross the threshold of the Opéra in many years; and because it is a disgrace that she should have been allowed to stagnate in the _corps_ for so long." He frowned, all his good humour gone. "She is going to be a star, Meg."

Meg was silent for a long time. "Oh," she murmured at last. She felt slightly sick.

She slowly became aware that Erik was standing, waiting for her to go, and she rose blindly.

"Thank you … for the advice …" she mumbled.

"My pleasure."

Erik escorted Meg courteously back up to the street level of the Opéra, then disappeared with ill-concealed haste, presumably to keep his delayed appointment with Christine.

Meg walked slowly to one of the smaller rehearsal rooms and sat carefully on a small piano stool in the middle of the room, folding her hands in her lap. To anyone passing, she would have appeared a small child meekly awaiting punishment; as it was, she had merely adopted the pose in which it was easiest for her to think.

She felt she should be angry with Erik. She had gone to him with a problem, as she had always been accustomed to do; and, for the first time in fourteen years, he had rebuffed her. He had been too _busy_ to attend to her problem; he had abandoned her for Christine. She felt she should be angry with him; and yet all she felt when she thought of his callousness was an aching emptiness in her chest. She could not summon the bitterness she felt appropriate to the situation until she thought of Christine.

A person older or more experienced in black-edged emotions than Meg would have immediately recognised the terrible beginnings of jealousy. But Meg was still very young, and her experience of jealousy was confined to childish envy of another girl with prettier hair or newer _pointe_ shoes than her own. Never had she wanted something she could not have with the kind of lacerating desperation that leads to sleepless nights and the wretched revolve of one thought throughout an excruciating day.

She had, however, read enough books and listened to enough gossip in the _corps_ to be extremely well-versed in love and its manifestations. The thought that she might be falling in love with Erik had occurred to her before; but only now, as she sat alone on her small stool in the middle of an empty practise room, thinking of him with her best friend, could she no longer suppress that thought.

It was perhaps a good thing that Meg was still sufficiently young and romantic to believe in the importance of tragedy in a relationship.

That night's performance was an unexpected triumph. As Erik had said – and Meg was never quite sure how it had all happened – Carlotta was mysteriously indisposed, and with typical disorganisation, no appropriate substitute could be found.

It was fortunate, then, that the managers should have received a note informing them that they were nurturing a far superior soprano to their current prima donna under an extremely well-concealed bushel; and it was testament to their desperation that they actually heeded their mysterious benefactor's advice.

Christine, in spite of suffering terribly from nerves and looking very small and very young in her elaborate costume – hastily altered to accommodate her figure, rather slimmer than its usual wearer's – proved an unexpected sensation. She produced a truly astonishing voice, and even Piangi, who had been outraged by the suggestion that the show could go on without his _cara_ prima donna, was forced to admit that she had performed "_adeguatamente_".

After receiving the astonished accolades of the cast and various dignitaries, Christine arrived back at her dressing room, her head spinning.

On the dressing table lay a bouquet of red roses, luxurious and velvety-soft, the stems stripped of their thorns.

She took up the card, her heart pounding.

_For the most beautiful woman ever to grace the Paris stage. No tutor has ever been prouder._

She held the card to her heart, tears of joy slipping down her cheeks. The approbation of Paris and the squealing praise of her friends faded instantly in the light of this unhoped-for commendation from her teacher.

His voice came unexpectedly from behind the mirror and, embarrassed, she hastily wiped her eyes.

"Do roses upset you so very much? I should have chosen fox-gloves, had I known."

Christine shook her head, her face breaking into a smile through her tears.

"I'm … so happy," she began, and broke off, overcome by emotion. She sat down and took out her handkerchief, mopping her face, embarrassed.

"So you should be." There was a brief pause, and when his voice came again, it was soft with tenderness. "I have never seen such a Marguerite."

Christine looked up. "You were watching, then?"

"I would not have missed it for the world."

Christine's smile grew even wider; and then, overcome by emotion, burst into tears and hid her face in her hands.

From behind the mirror, Erik pressed a hand against the wall in alarm.

"Christine." He strove desperately to keep his voice calm. "Please don't cry. You should be … so proud of yourself."

Christine shook her head. "You are … so kind to me." She laughed a little. "What would I do without you?"

Erik closed his eyes in bittersweet yearning, and screwed up his courage. He spoke abruptly before his nerve could desert him.

"Would you like to never be without me again?"

Christine's head came up at once; she leapt to her feet, her eyes immediately searching the walls of the little dressing room. "Oh, _yes_!"

Erik was silent, tears trickling down his face, unable to speak through the growing knot of emotion in his throat. He had never loved her so well as in this moment, when she smiled upon him without knowing his unworthiness, her eyes radiating absolute trust.

In that moment, he could almost believe that it was possible that she could come to love him.

He could not speak; he did not trust his voice. Christine, her thrill of joy slowly fading into panic at his silence, looked wildly around the room.

"Angel? Oh … don't go … please, please don't leave me! …"

She heard a click, and turned just in time to see the mirror ease aside, revealing a half-silhouetted figure in a dark corridor. She stepped back in alarm; but his voice spoke to her, and she hastened forward towards it.

"Come."

He extended a hand, and she reached out to him, her fingers clasping smooth, soft gloves.

He nodded, and she stepped trustingly into the darkness with him.

Meg was rushing down the corridor towards Christine's dressing room. Christine had been wonderful tonight; even Meg, who had probably heard more of her singing than any of the rest of the corps, had been astonished by the voice she produced in spite of the nerves that had been making her ill before the performance.

But Meg never arrived at Christine's dressing room. She was accosted by Christine's dresser, evidently coming from that very place, hysterical and confused; and from her largely incoherent story she managed to infer that Christine had disappeared without trace.

This was the moment when the lance of jealousy first pierced Meg's heart, cold and savage, and utterly merciless; and when Christine reappeared several days later, she could barely bring herself to speak to her. She could not bear the thought that Erik had taken her to his home; that they had shared intimacy and experiences which previously had belonged only to her.

Meg dealt with the hysterical Sophie and packed her off home early, promising to report Christine's disappearance. In fact, of course, she did no such thing: well able to imagine Erik's reaction should the Surèté begin investigations into Christine's absence, she concealed the situation from the Opera as best she could, and went home late that night feeling cold and miserable inside.

Christine reappeared several days later, pale and wan and utterly unwilling to discuss what had happened in the labyrinthine depths of the Opera, and Meg began to feel, for the first time in her life, truly and terribly alone. She had always confided her feelings to her mother, who despite her formidable facade in public was at home the very picture of maternal affection, and that which she could not tell her mother, she had always confided to Christine, secret giggling after rehearsal in the comfortable dimness of Christine's little flat. But she and Christine were drifting apart, each holding tightly onto confused secrets which took on uncertain forms and were not yet quite fixed in either girl's mind, and which neither felt able to confide to the other. Even had she and Christine remained as close as they had once been, the uncomfortable prickings of jealousy and confusion that Meg was beginning to experience towards her friend would have prevented her from taking Christine into her confidence: for years now, Meg had been Erik's sole confidant and companion, and the nagging feeling that she was being replaced – and by her own best friend, no less! – affected her with a mixture of anxiety and resentment.

She had even tried to talk to Erik about her feelings; but Erik had of late become moody and reclusive, even more so than usual, and utterly unwilling to talk about Christine. This sudden change in Erik, making him so sullen and unapproachable, was due, Meg had no doubt, to the arrival of an old friend of Christine's who evidently wished to revive their childhood friendship, and take it further: the Vicomte de Chagny. Raoul.

Raoul was young – barely twenty two – and devastatingly handsome. From his curly black hair to the frequently casual but elegant nature of his dress and bearing, he was the object of infinite admiration from the _corps de ballet_, and his obvious interest in Christine had rendered her the most envied girl in the Opera.

Christine had tried to gently distance herself from him, but even she could not resist a shy smile of pleasure when another single white rose found its way to her dressing room with an invitation to dinner.

Meg had watched the whole saga with bated breath, half-anxious, knowing that Erik would not be impressed should Christine finally give in and accept Raoul's all-too-frequent invitations. A part of Meg wished she would: Erik might be so angry at her betrayal that he might refuse to teach her again. But another part of her felt guilty at the thought. Christine had been, and ostensibly still was, her friend; and, much though she hated to admit it, she did make Erik happy.

"Erik? Eri -" Meg stopped short as she entered the room, seeing at once why Erik had not answered her call.

He was curled up in an armchair, his fingers resting between the pages of a novel which lay on the arm of the chair, sound asleep.

Meg smiled. Curled up in the armchair huge enough to dwarf even his long frame, his face open and unguarded in sleep, Erik looked very young, and very vulnerable. As she watched, he stirred, withdrawing his hand from the book, which toppled soundlessly to the thick plush carpet.

Meg knew enough of Erik's sleeping patterns to know that she should not even consider waking him. It was comforting to see him sleeping so peacefully: Meg had never forgotten the terrible night when, aged seven, she had wandered into Erik's room to demand a story, and had been greeted by the sight of Erik writhing on the couch in the terrifying grip of one of the nightmares that so plagued him.

They had never spoken of that night since, and Meg knew Erik, with no little relief, believed her to have long forgotten. But the erratic hours she knew he kept, coupled with the occasional days when he appeared too exhausted to receive her as normal, led Meg to know that he had not shaken off the nightmares with time.

Ayesha wandered into the room in search of food or companionship, and after studying her sleeping master for a moment, decided that he did not deserve to sleep while she was hungry. She opened her little mouth to meow crossly at him, and made to jump up at him when he did not stir.

"No, Ayesha, no!" Meg whispered, scooping the cat up into her arms to keep her from waking Erik. "Shh!"

Not to be outdone, Ayesha opened her mouth and howled as only a Siamese can.

Erik's eyes snapped open.

"Christine?"

Meg dropped Ayesha, who purred and rubbed smugly up against Meg's legs, satisfied by the horrendous noise she had produced that Erik's attention was once again restored to her.

"No," she said, a little put out by the immediacy of his reaction. "It's me. Meg."

Erik had risen hastily upon waking, but now he sank back into his armchair, passing a hand across his face to clear the clouds of sleep. Although he smiled drowsily at Meg, and gestured for her to sit, she could not help but feel crestfallen at the momentary flash of disappointment that had crossed his face at the realisation that it was not Christine who had woken him.

Erik smiled half-heartedly at Meg and gathered the now-purring cat into his arms.

"Hello, Meg." He still sounded rather tired.

"Were you expecting her?" Meg inquired, keeping her eyes firmly on her hands, feeling resentment rise up in her. That the first name to occur to him upon waking should be _hers_ …

Erik looked up from rubbing Ayesha behind the ears to look inquiringly at Meg. "Hm?"

"Christine."

"Ah." There was a brief pause. "No. No, I wasn't expecting her. Not today." He gave her a wryly self-deprecating smile, then rose. "Would you like some tea?" he asked, rather abruptly, and she sensed he wanted to change the subject.

Meg twisted her fingers in her skirt, seething with resentment. That she should be the first name on his lips even when he _knew_ she wasn't coming ... it was so _unfair_.

"No," she said shortly, standing up abruptly, bristling with hurt pride. "No, I don't want any tea. Forgive me for disturbing you; I'll let you get back to ..."

Words failed her, and she turned and ran out, feeling the hot sting of tears prickle behind her eyes.

Erik was only a step or two behind her, and caught up with her on the shore of the lake, catching hold of her arm.

"Meg ..."

Her hair flying in her face and obscuring her vision, Meg took a hasty step away from him, anxious that he should not see the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. In doing so, she caught her foot against a stone and fell heavily, twisting her ankle under her. She let out a yelp of pain that was more like a sob, and the tears finally cascaded down her cheeks in a scalding rainfall.

Erik knelt beside her, his eyes concerned.

"Are you all right?"

"Don't touch me!" she snapped, turning her face away from him, her anger dissolving into tears.

She became aware that Erik was sitting back on his heels, and was now regarding her with confused hurt.

"Meg ..."

She began to sob in earnest.

"Oh, Megan ... what's the matter? Tell me."

She felt him place a hand on her shoulder, turning her gently but inexorably to face him.

She looked up into his face, her eyes large and tear-filled; and in his eyes she read exactly what had been there ten years ago when she had fallen and scraped her knee on the rough shingle of the lakeshore: earnest concern and almost paternal affection for the child as whom he had never ceased to see her. And she knew that she could not tell him; she would die before telling him.

"Do you love her so very much?" she asked at last through a haze of tears, and felt him draw away from her, his hand leaving her shoulder.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked in a voice suddenly grown wary.

"Christine."

Erik looked at her in open astonishment before trying to laugh.

"What sort of a question is that?" he asked, his voice not quite so steady as it had been.

"I just want to know," she said in a low voice. "Do you really love her so very much?"

Erik stood up and walked away from her. There was a very long silence, broken only by the faint splash of the lake water washing up against the shore. He did not turn to face her as he finally spoke.

"Yes," he replied at last, still not looking at her. "Yes, I do."

Meg was silent for a moment. "Have you told her?"

Erik laughed shortly. "No."

The silence stretched out the length of the lakeshore. Meg fiddled with her dress, her fingers seeking out a worn spot in the skirt. "Why not?" she asked timidly, looking up at Erik standing aloof and imposing against the light spreading out from inside the house.

Erik glanced at her before turning to stare out over the black waters of the lake. "Because I rather feel I would be wasting my breath – not to mention my self-respect."

Meg found herself at a loss for words. "Oh," she whispered.

Once again silence grew and spread out over the lake.

"Perhaps ... perhaps if you were to tell her, she might surprise you ..."

Something in Erik's eyes lit, and in one swift movement he was at her side. "What has she said to you?"

Seeing how Erik had misinterpreted her, Meg hastened to explain. "Nothing! I didn't mean ..." She shook her head, words failing her. "We haven't talked about you. I just meant ... I just meant that I don't see why you think she would react so badly."

As if in a dream, Erik rose and crossed the shore to stare out blindly into the lake again.

"You are ... so sweet, Meg," he said wearily. "So sweet, and so naïve." He passed a hand through his hair.

"I don't know why you say that," she objected, rather indignantly. "Why does my believing that she might not react so badly as you seem to anticipate make me naïve?"

Erik looked back at her, astonishment plainly overwriting his distress. "You see me in too kind a light," he said at last. "Her own is not so forbearing. She … has seen that which you have not; and I think that she will never forgive me for it."

Meg understood with a sudden flash of clarity. So long had she been his friend, accustomed to all his little quirks and eccentricities, that the mask had long ceased to hold any mystery for her.

But Christine …

"You showed her your _face_?" she breathed in disbelief, and felt a sharp blade of jealousy thrust into her ribs again. Erik had never even been prepared to _discuss_ his face with her; and yet he had shown it to Christine of his own free volition?

Erik gave a bark of laughter that was utterly devoid of humour. "Not exactly." He glanced at her and made a swiftly-curbed movement of pain with long eloquent hands. "She took it upon herself to … uncover whatever it was I was hiding from her," he clarified stiffly. "I am not such a fool as to have entertained any hope that she might not have been affected by it. But I had not reckoned on her … _damned_ curiosity." He sighed and drifted into silence.

"Erik …" Meg hesitated, feeling somewhere in her throat that she ought not to ask. But if Christine had seen …

Jealous vanity gave her the spur she needed to plunge ahead. "Would you show me …"

He whirled to face her, his eyes alive with fire. "Don't ask it, Meg!"

"But _why_?" Frustration overtook Meg, and the certain unfairness of it all overwhelmed her. "Why must you distrust me because of _her_?"

Erik was silent.

"I sometimes feel …" he began at last, slowly, "that because of her I will never trust anyone again." There was a long silence, and Meg felt her heart wrench inside her. "And then I realise that without her, there is nothing I care for enough to make trust a risk."

Meg stared at him, stricken to the heart by the unthinking cruelty of his words. She felt the pain as a physical blow to the chest and took a shaking step back.

"Thank you."

The expression in his eyes changed, and his head went back with a gesture of regret as he realised what he had said.

"Oh, Meg, forgive me …" He reached out to her in apology, and she recoiled from his touch, sobbing wildly now. "You should have told me years ago; I would have ceased to burden you with my tedious company!"

Erik seized hold of her shoulders and shook her. "_Meg!_"

She stood still, shocked into silence.

"_What_ is wrong with you today?"

Meg gave a sobbing, incredulous laugh. "What's wrong with _me_? You can say such _awful_ things … and then be surprised when I …"

"No."

Meg looked into his eyes, surprised.

"I was wrong. I have apologised. That is _not_ what is troubling you. Now, if you don't want to tell me what _is_, then tell me so and have done with it." His voice softened, and his fingers released their bruising grip on her shoulders. "But my dear …" He tilted her face gently, bringing her eyes up to meet his own. "We have never kept secrets, have we?"

"_I_ have not," Meg muttered sullenly.

"No," he agreed, ignoring the double edge of her response. "So what can be so serious that you now feel the need to?"

Meg looked up into kind yellow eyes and felt her heart lurch within her. Quite how he had managed to wrong-foot her _again_ and lay bare her every change in mood she would never understand; she had never been able to keep secrets from him, and yet she shrank from the thought of revealing the most deeply-hidden secret she had ever held.

"I …" She stopped. She felt much as she had done when approached by a small English child on the streets of Paris and realised that her paltry English could not supply her with the words she needed to guide the child on his way.

Erik smiled gently. "Why don't we go inside and sit down, my dear?"

Meg's eyes followed his gesture to the warm, inviting interior of the living room … and caught on a flash of red draped over the back of the second armchair. _Her_ chair!

Christine's scarf.

That single symbol of the way Christine had wrapped herself around Erik's life to the exclusion of all else hardened Meg's heart as nothing else could have.

"No, thank you," she replied coldly. "I am busy today."

She wrapped her own scarf more closely around her throat and marched off, tears stinging her eyes, dreading lest he should come after her; feeling she would die if he did not.

Erik remained where he was on the lakeshore, confused and bewildered by Meg's inexplicable anger. So harmonious was their relationship accustomed to be that he was unaccustomed to and ill-equipped to handle such animosity from his most gentle little friend. He watched her stride away, stumbling on the pebbles in her agitation, and slowly turned to return to the house.

Erik sat down thoughtfully in his chair, and his eyes lit on Christine's scarf, adorning the other armchair like a Christmas ornament. He reached out for it, and took its softness into his hands, breathing in the faint scent of her perfume which still clung to the worn fabric, and sighed.

The beautiful, ice crystal dreams he had spun in the air of this underground prison were disintegrating before his very eyes, even as he reached out desperately to cling to them; they melted under his touch as he fought frantically to maintain some semblance of their shape.

All he had left of the one woman who had ever coloured his world was a worn red woollen scarf; and, despite his own contempt for such inadequate sentimentality, he missed her so hopelessly that he could not let it go.

He pressed the scarf momentarily against his cheek, and closed his eyes.

When he came to look back on that day, much later, he could not think of how he had come to be so unfeeling to Meg. She was so dear to him; the child he had never had: and yet he knew, deep in his heart, that she had been eclipsed in the overwhelming, flaming brilliance of his love for Christine as the tender, unassuming light of the moon is lost to the brightness of the sun. He should have followed her; he should have gone to her mother; he should have done anything, anything other than sit alone in his sitting room with a worn red scarf as his only companion and torture himself by repeating and repeating the expression of horrified, anguished terror in Christine's eyes as his shame was revealed to her.

Later, Erik was heartily ashamed of his conduct that day. But as it was, he did not go after her. He sat and thought of Christine – less than a mile away from him, and utterly beyond his reach – and less than a hundred feet away, Meg sank down onto the rough stone floor of the path back up into the Opera, shielded from the underground house by a crudely hewn wall, and cried hot, scalding tears of hopeless misery.


	3. Chapter III

A/N – You will notice that I've altered the plot of this part of the story fairly significantly: the main objective was to remove the death of Joseph Buquet. Before everyone starts to beat me for trying to sentimentalise – don't. I am not trying to paint Erik as less than he is: he remains an interestingly psychotic murderer. But that part of the plot, at least in the musical, _makes no sense._ How could they continue with the performance after a dead body had dropped out of the flies? And if they don't continue with the performance, the chandelier loses all value as a dramatic device. Pfft.

Mary Jo Miller – no, _Only Love_ is still alive and being worked on; it's just taking a bit of a back seat to this at the moment. It will be updated sooner or later, I promise :)

Georgie, Sweet Georgia – thank you for the advice – I should have explained earlier that whilst I know that Leroux Raoul is blonde, mine isn't. Nor does he have the bizarre Patrick Wilson ponytail. My Raoul is based on the ALW musical (not the film) and hence has a healthy dollop of all my favourite stage Raouls, the biggest influence being Matt Cammelle (stop laughing, Steph!) who is dark – for anyone who's interested, type his name into Google picture search and there are a few of him looking divine in his suit. (Ahem.) I also find the idea of a blonde Raoul very irritating – that blindingly obvious symbolism of dark-haired Erik and blonde Raoul (and Schumacher's miraculously original use of a black horse for Erik and a grey for Raoul) annoys me.

Lots of thanks to all who have reviewed – I'm overjoyed to hear that there are others out there who love Meg as much as I do. (As to the question of happy ending or not - happy for whom? I'll never tell ;))

Christine's doll belongs to Christine Persephone (everybody go and read her story _Reflections_ for the most gorgeous scene with the doll you'll ever see).

-

The day Meg finally withdrew from Erik a confession of what he felt for Christine marked a turning point in all their lives. Knowing that Christine had seen his face, Meg now understood – or thought she did – why Christine was growing thin and pale, continually nervous. Although she was still subject to periods of disappearance, these were now short, and Meg inferred, with a tiny, guilty internal thrill, that she had not stayed in Erik's house for any longer than the duration of a singing lesson since.

Erik grew progressively more moody and reclusive; accidents backstage doubled; and Meg knew, from the occasional faint twitch of a curtain in Box Five, that he was now attending all of Christine's rehearsals and performances. Christine was rarely seen with the Vicomte except outside the building, and when they were together, they whispered anxiously in corners, like two children hiding from grown-ups bent on expending their wrath for crimes as yet unpunished.

Erik's temper did not improve as time wore on, and Meg began to hope that his infatuation with his angelic soprano might have run its course.

Her mother – less involved, more perceptive, and inevitably proved right by time – knew that it had not.

The whole situation finally came to a head one morning in early January. Meg learned, from the excited gossip of the ballet _corps_ and her mother's harassed expression, that a letter concerning the next production – a traditional, highly derivative opera called _Il Muto_ – had found its way from the Opera Ghost to the managers. This note followed the same pattern as all others: minute criticisms of the orchestra and musical direction of the production, and instructions on the prospect of casting.

Robyn, who had been hiding from a member of the male chorus in a small rehearsal room just next to the managers' office, had overheard much of the discussion of the letter, and came flying into the dormitories bursting with her own importance.

The girls crowded round to listen.

"It's you again, Christine!" she explained with great excitement. "He's said that you are to play the Countess – ooh, Carlotta was _furious_ –" there was a ripple of delighted laughter "– and that there will be trouble if you don't!"

As the other girls pressed in upon Robyn, demanding more details, Meg saw Christine reach out to her bed and take her doll into her arms. She was very pale.

Silently, she rose from the bed on which she had been sitting, and passed out of the dormitories without a word to any of the girls.

Half an hour later, Meg saw her with Raoul, she looking tearful and guilty, he serious and protective; and she returned slowly to the dormitories to sit on her bed and wonder why Erik was so determined to push Christine into a lead role she so clearly did not want.

A week or two later, everything changed.

Rehearsals had been cancelled due to the snowfall that had blanketed Paris in a soft white quilt, and Meg, bored by the inane chatter of twenty ballet rats huddled together over a fire in a dressing room that could only have been built to hold five at the very most, wandered downstairs to pay a visit on Erik.

She could hear him shouting as soon as she closed the mirror behind her and lit her oil lamp.

She hastened down the steps, feeling a cold chill of fear down her spine at the anger in Erik's voice, which resounded off the narrow cavern walls to awesome effect. In her efforts to hear what he was shouting, she failed to pay close enough attention to where she was going, and stumbled on her dress in the dark, tearing her skirt on a jagged rock sticking out of the wall. As she bent to check the damage to her dress with a mild profanity, she heard Christine's voice raised, sounding scared.

Disregarding the damage to her dress, she ran forward, heedless of the dark, suddenly very afraid for her little friend.

By the time she reached the house on the lake, Erik was no longer shouting. She should have been reassured; but his voice was now low and chilling, acid with rage, and the tightly leashed fury expressed in low, hissing syllables was somehow so much more frightening than when he raised his voice in anger.

Meg peeped round a stone gargoyle, and found that she could see into the music room, where she could see Christine standing, looking absolutely terrified, as Erik stood with his back to her, his hands clenched white with rage on the piano before him.

They were both silent for a long time: Christine evidently afraid to speak lest she anger him still further, Erik struggling to contain himself and regain his composure.

He finally turned back to face her, and Meg almost gasped to see the fire of rage blazing in his eyes.

"Very well, then," he said at last, his voice very low, carefully controlled, but unmistakably dangerous. "Very well then, my dear ... do explain it to me. Explain to me exactly which part of _'you are not to see Raoul de Chagny outside this Opera House_' was unclear to you, and explain to me exactly what I have to do to make you understand!"

Christine visibly shrank back from him. "Erik, please ..." she whispered.

"No!" he thundered, making both Meg and Christine jump. He drew one hand, shaking with passion, back through his hair. "Explain it to me, Christine! I don't doubt it's my own fault for not having been more _explicit_, for not having made it _clear_ to you, but I would like to know exactly what I have to do to make you understand that I _will not_ have you seeing him outside this Opera House!"

"But _why_?" Christine suddenly burst out. "I don't understand what you have against him! You've never objected to my going out with Meg, or with Nicole, or any of the others ... he won't be a distraction from my singing, Erik, I swear ..."

Her voice trailed off as he approached her, every motion leashed with the powerful feline grace of the wild cat, every inch the predator, smouldering with barely-controlled fury as he towered over her.

"No, Christine," he said, very softly, his voice a low hiss. "He will not be a distraction from your singing. He will not be a distraction from your singing, because you will not see him again."

Meg could see that Christine was visibly trembling as Erik towered over her, but somehow she managed to gather the courage to speak.

"Erik, please ... this isn't fair ..."

Erik laughed shortly, making a dismissive gesture in the air with one hand, drawing away from Christine and turning his back on her. "No, my dear, I daresay it isn't." He whirled back on her suddenly, and Meg could see his anger blaze again. "But then, I suppose, it is fair that you should lie to me. Fair that you should go out and forget all of this, that your voice should mean so little to you that you disregard it as soon as you are out of this building ... fair that you should leave me waiting for you, expecting you, watching the minutes tick away, wondering whether you're all right, whether something terrible has happened, fearing God only knows what ... because you are with _him_!"

He raised one hand in a gesture of acutely impotent frustration, and for a moment Meg cowered, certain that he would hit Christine; but instead he turned and swept a vase off the piano into the hearth, where it shattered with an awesome crash. The momentary explosion of his anger over, he turned wearily away from her and drew a shaking hand across his face.

"Do not speak to me of fair, Christine," he said, very quietly.

There was a long silence, in which Erik stood like marble with one hand on the fireplace and his back to Christine, and his pupil hesitated behind him, irresolution showing in every line of her bearing.

Meg found herself holding her breath. Christine's voice reached her at last, tentative and very small.

"Erik …" she ventured. "I'm sorry."

He turned to face her, and Meg saw with fervent relief that the anger had drained out of him. He reached out, and although he did not touch her, the smooth motion of his fingers tilted her face up to look him in the eye. His other arm, still without touching her, brought Christine a step closer, his hands tender now, his eyes soft.

"My dear …" he murmured, his voice soft and wistful melting over her, an aural caress. Meg could see tears sparkling in Christine's eyes, but at Erik's tenderness – a caress any woman would have invited, had it only been from another man – the dawn of a smile appeared on her lips, and she lifted one hand to touch his own.

"No, Christine," he said, very softly, and suddenly all tenderness was gone. His hand came away from her face, and a terrible cold fear flooded through Meg again. "You speak to me of unfairness?" He gestured around the house. "This place is silent when you are not here. Silence is a terrible thing in solitude – as you will learn."

He walked away from her. He was all coldness now; no vestige of either his tempestuous rage or the gentleness of only a moment ago now remained about him.

"Your dressing room will be silent until you can call for me in the full and true knowledge that you are prepared to be faithful to me. The mirror, you know, does not work for you; it obeys only my hand." He settled into a chair, appearing perfectly at ease, and made an elegant, swirling gesture in the air with one hand. "I am no longer prepared to expend my tutelage on you without a better proof of fidelity than you have thus far provided."

Christine took a protesting step towards him, but he held up a hand and she stopped in her tracks.

"It may seem unreasonable to you, Christine." He crossed his hands before him. "But I will tell you now that I am not prepared to experience another night like yesterday's – time passes slowly and the mind conjures up unwelcome images when expected guests do not arrive."

"Erik, please, I said I was sorry …"

"You could have been lying at the bottom of the Seine for all I knew." His voice was very low, and tightly restrained. "You could have been raped and murdered in the street. _Anything_ could have happened to you – do you have _any_ idea of the possibilities that went through my mind last night, because you had _forgotten_ you were to have a lesson?" Acid seeped into his voice. "Because you were with _him_."

Christine bowed her head, and Meg realised that she was crying.

"No tears, my dear," he spoke crisply. He rose, and strode away from her. "You have one week. If you have not called for me by the end of the week, I shall know that you have made your decision, and that adding your name to the inestimable list of Raoul de Chagny's conquests is still more palatable to you than my instruction." He turned briefly to glance at Christine. She had not moved, her head still bowed, and Meg desperately wanted to run to her and put her arms around her. "You know the way out." He turned away from her to look through the bookcase under the pretext of selecting a book.

Meg watched Christine look up slowly, her tears standing on her cheeks, and stare at Erik's back. Her friend remained still for a moment, before giving a sob and fleeing the room. Meg heard the door to the Rue Scribe exit slam, and saw Erik's head come up in response.

He dropped the book he had been holding – upside down, Meg noticed sadly – and walked slowly, stiffly to his chair. He sat down like a man suddenly old, and buried his face in his hands. Meg automatically released her hold on the stone gargoyle, realising with surprise that her skin was bruised and grazed from the tightness of her terrified grip on the stone-carved monster and scrambled down from her vantage point to go to him.

She was almost at the door when she heard the sound that stopped her in her tracks and caught her heart mid-beat. A gulping sob, barely audible against the perennial backdrop of the waves washing softly up against the shingle, caught her ear and sang anguish into her heart. She shrank back against the rocky crag that served as the outside wall of Erik's house and listened intently.

The sound did not come again, and she almost began to wonder if she might have imagined it. She stood on tiptoes, seeking to see into the window that Erik had, with the typical disregard of tall men for the small ballet rats of this world, placed a good foot too high for her to see into.She was forced to scramble back up to her vantage point on the path above to see in through the window; but when she did, she saw that she had not been mistaken.

Erik was sitting in his chair, his face hidden in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Meg stared, aghast. She had never seen Erik cry before; he was the strongest person she knew. To think of him as subject to emotional weakness like any other person was incomprehensible and terrifying …

But then another thought occurred to her.

_Why would he send her away if her absence made him so very miserable?_ Meg shook her head. She could not understand it. Erik had always been beyond her, a source of facts and philosophies that she could never share or absorb; but ever since Christine had walked into his life he seemed so much more irrational, so much more enigmatic and downright _incomprehensible_ than ever before.

She did not dare to go to him. She walked slowly away from the house, absorbed in her own thoughts.

Meg did not see Erik for the next two days: he did not come to bring her down to his house for tea as he was accustomed to do, and when she ventured down there of her own accord, the house was in silence, and no reply came when she called his name through the door.

During those two days, Christine was often to be found sitting in a small rehearsal room by herself. She avoided her dressing room, and Meg inferred that she wanted to be quite removed from the influence of both Erik and Raoul to enable her to make her decision. By the end of the second day, however, Anna reported having seen her in a mumbled, intense conference with Raoul that left both of them in tears; and when she did not turn up to rehearsal on the third day, Meg knew, with a slight sinking of the heart, that she had made her choice in favour of Erik's instruction.

Perhaps even worse to Meg than the sickening jealousy was the feeling of guilt that accompanied it. She knew she should be happy for her friends: both so lonely in their separate ways, they needed each other so desperately. Were they not both so afraid – Christine of relinquishing the safety of Raoul's protective love and opening herself to the fire of Erik's devotion, and Erik of allowing her to see quite how deeply that devotion ran inside him – they could have been so happy.

She was forced to admit that she had liked both Erik and Christine far better when she had been their sole ally in a world that seemed determined to crush their respective spirits.

Erik was, at present, hidden in Box Five watching the dress rehearsal. He clenched his fists as Carlotta stepped up for her aria; frustration coursed through him. His eyes sought out Christine to see how she was reacting to the elder woman's performance; and his anger melted.

Christine was sitting on the floor at the side of the stage, her white ballet dress pooling around her. Her hands were folded in her lap, and although she was surrounded by the other ballet girls, she looked singularly isolated. As he watched, she glanced anxiously around the auditorium, hastily returning her eyes to stare fixedly at her hands as they compulsively smoothed and plucked at her skirt. She was always so nervous these days: the trusting innocence that had always so enthralled him had gradually slipped away from her to be replaced by a constant state of apprehension. When she was with him now, she was jumpy and quick to apologise for mistakes; if he asked her a question, her reply would be hasty and non-committal. The expression of intense relief that had greeted his suggestion that she might prefer to resume her lessons in one of the music rooms of the Opéra rather than making constant journeys to and from his house had hurt almost as much as her first screaming reaction to his face.

As for her beautiful smile – that captivating burst of sunlight which gave her pensive little face passion – he had not seen her smile in weeks, save the awkward, forced little twitch of her lips with which she now responded to him.

As Erik watched her sitting curled on the stage, looking so sad and alone, the angry frustration brought on by Carlotta's inept performance slipped away. His chest gradually became an aching hollow; guilt began its insidious, seeping crawl through his veins.

Her increasingly nervous state reflected the failure of her trust in him; her sadness he could only attribute to her separation from Raoul. She had promised that she would not see him again, and had so far been true to her word; but as Erik watched her pull miserably at her skirt, her eyes clouded and distant, he knew she was wondering if the price of fame was too steep.

It was necessary, of course. She would see that one day: romance was a distraction she could not afford if she wanted to excel in her chosen career. Bile rose in his throat as an image of Raoul's arm around her waist came to mind; to push away the unwanted mental progression to the vision of her as his wife, he transferred his attention back to Carlotta.

Erik had been willing to sacrifice his demand that Christine should sing the Countess: it was not a role for which she was particularly well suited, and, as she shrank ever further away from him, her voice was not progressing as he would have liked. But he wished …

Oh, how he wished that she had possessed the courage to demand the role. She would have been so beautiful; so charming.

Erik sat back in his hard-backed chair and steepled his fingers together musingly, only distantly hearing Monsieur Reyer's weary address and the rustling and giggling chatter that heralded a brief recess in rehearsal.

He dared not allow himself to dwell on all the other wishes Christine aroused in him.

The night of the first performance of _Il Muto_ was one no one in the Opera House seemed likely to forget in a hurry. Somehow – Meg rather suspected through the insistence of Raoul that a madman's demands must not be honoured – the managers had found the courage to cast Carlotta in the lead soprano role of the Countess; and to her astonishment, six weeks of rehearsals had passed peacefully away with no reprisals from Erik.

Meg had not been able to find the courage to ask him why: with every passing day, Erik grew more and more distant, and Meg did not dare to broach the subject of Christine for fear of driving him away from her altogether. As it was, she felt she was clinging to shadows which subtly withdrew from her touch, and the slightest wrong move could take Erik's love from her forever. She dared not mention Christine; and now their conversations were frivolous, empty things: ballet _corps_ gossip and trivial popular news of the day, but never touching on anything personal or important to either of them.

Everything that had made him so wonderful, so uniquely special among all the men she had ever known, was fading now in the overwhelming brilliance of his love for Christine. While they had been accustomed to sit in comfortable silence by the fire, Erik reading or working while Meg sewed, he was now always restless, frequently getting up to poke the fire or rearrange papers on the piano, all the while glancing surreptitiously at the clock, watching the cruel minutes tick by, each passing revolution of the hands bringing Christine closer to him again.

When they talked, the wistfulness in his eyes – distant and hastily suppressed – let Meg know that he was still thinking about her.

He was losing his individuality in his total absorption in another person; and Meg hated him for it. She was surprised that he had not insisted on Christine's taking the role he had designated for her, but could not bring herself to care: perhaps this was the first sign of the cords of his attachment loosening, his love passing into apathy as time wore on and still Christine showed no signs of reciprocating his feelings.

As she changed into her costume for the performance, she felt almost light-hearted.

On later reflection, the night had been doomed before it had even begun. Erik's nerves were on edge that night before he even arrived in the auditorium. His earlier lesson with Christine had been an unprecedented disaster: she was always nervous before performances, but today her concentration had been utterly absent, and her continual mistakes and nervous apologies combined to drive him into a state of irritated frustration which her every word seemed to heighten.

But the sight of Raoul de Chagny sitting with the natural, graceful elegance of a man well accustomed to society in Box Five infuriated him: and goaded by the fond way the young man watched Christine dance onstage, it was really little short of a miracle that Erik managed to restrain himself from sealing his lips forever.

And as he hovered above the stage in the wings like a great black bat, the sound of Carlotta's voice rising shrilly into the air was the final straw.

Less than thirty feet below Erik, Meg waited in the wings, absently stroking the hand of a young dancer called Rachel, who had never danced in front of such a large audience before and was suffering from the stage fright that must inevitably accompany such a momentous occasion as her first public performance.

Rachel was whispering anxiously, "Are there so _very_ many people out there?" when a voice, seeming to originate somewhere in the ceiling and fan out to envelop the whole auditorium in tones of steel wrapped in velvet.

"Did I forget to make it clear that Box Five is not available for sale to members of the public?"

His voice was acidic, dangerously calm; Meg felt Nicole catch at her arm in panic as Rachel clutched her hand even tighter.

"And did I neglect to mention my casting recommendations?"

Raoul sprang to his feet, his eyes searching the flies, his hand reaching inside his jacket for his pistol. At this movement, the voice's tone changed, fury replacing control.

"_I will not be disobeyed!_"

Meg cowered, feeling the _corps_ press around her in a comforting huddle as her mother pushed through the crowd to stand at the side of the stage.

It happened so quickly that – although afterwards, all the ballet rats swore blind they had seen a shadowy figure lurking in the flies – Meg could not see exactly what happened. There was a loud crash; screams rose from the cast; and the shout went up that Carlotta had fainted. It was only much later that Meg saw the metal weight – usually used to hold down the heavy backdrops – which had plummeted from above the stage towards Carlotta. Only the diva's astonishingly quick reflexes had saved her: no man living could have survived the impact of such a weight.

Andre was standing in his box, futilely attempting to shout calming reassurances to the audience; Firmin stood behind him, scanning the roof for any sign of his invisible opponent. Carlotta, hastily revived by a chorus member's smelling salts, was wailing in Spanish; Piangi frantically trying to soothe her; and it was, in the end, Raoul who took charge.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" His voice was loud enough to make himself heard over the cries of the audience, and its natural authority gave him control. The audience quieted. "We crave your indulgence for this unfortunate incident. The performance will continue after a short recess –" a glance across the auditorium at Firmin, who nodded quickly "– when the role of the Countess will be taken by Mademoiselle Christine Daaé.

Meg saw Christine look up at Box Five, startled. Her mouth formed the word "No", but the tumultuous commotion onstage prevented any sound rising to touch Raoul, who disappeared momentarily to reappear in the wings.

"_Raoul!_" Christine rushed into his arms, sobbing and clutching at his shirtfront like a frightened child after a nightmare. He enfolded her in his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder and kissing her hair, his touch fraternal.

She clutched at his jacket. "I can't. I can't do it!"

He stroked her hair, murmuring soothing words into her ear. "You must, my love."

"I can't. Raoul … he's so angry with me …" Her tears deprived her of the power of speech, and she bent her head into Raoul's chest.

Raoul stroked her hair, and waved away the harassed-looking woman from the costume department who was approaching with a tape measure to take Christine away and give her her new costume.

"Five minutes," he mouthed over her head, and the woman nodded. Raoul took Christine's face gently in one hand and spoke softly to her.

"Come with me."

Christine, teetering on the edge of hysteria, was in no fit state to resist as he hurried her up the steps to the roof. It was logical enough, Erik mused as he watched: Christine had told the Vicomte that his rival lived in the cellars, so where better to escape his watchful eye than the roof?

He snorted and concealed himself behind a heavily gilded wing, resting one hand on the carved lyre, his fingers stroking absently along the unyielding stone strings as Christine's guilty conscience spilled forth in a stream of confused confession.

His calm endured far longer than he would have expected it to. He bore her tears, her vividly cruel descriptions of his face, her desperate pleas for salvation – even the look in her eyes as the Vicomte asked her to marry him! – with no physical reaction other than the gradual tensing of his muscles until the tendons stood out on his hands as they gripped the statue. He crouched, as still as the cold marble angel beside him, frozen. It was not until the Vicomte leaned forward to kiss her, and she allowed it, that the flaming heat of pain began to melt the frozen reserve which preserved his silent, unmoving shell; only then did the tears of ice and fire begin to ease from behind the mask.

His mouth formed her name: no sound emerged; the Vicomte kissed her again, suddenly boyishly exuberant in his joy – _so young, they were both so young_ – she laughed; he pressed his face against the cold marble of the statue. _It burns_ …

The cold surface of the statue did little to cool his burning cheek as he laid his face flat against the gentle, stroking fingers of a muse.

Would that his own would so allow his touch.

The pain was almost physical: his heart scalded within him, corrosive and agonising, and the tears that slid down his face – once such an unfamiliar sensation, and yet how often had he cried this past year in certain knowledge of what could never be his? – were acid against his face.

Deep within the layers of pain lay the one root of unalterable certainty: he couldn't lose her. Not now: in only one short year she had changed every aspect of his life; stripped him of his dignity and self-reliance, and he could no longer bear to imagine life without her.

Before her, his only desire had been to be hidden from the world, never knowing or imagining what others suffered and exulted in in the name of love; and how abruptly had she turned that single desire upside down.

Now all he wanted was her, and he could not lose her.

He saw now how empty his world was: everything he had ever loved – his music, his books, his art – now seemed hollow distractions, pale imitations of life. He had buried his childish longing to be loved so many years ago, thrust it deeply down into the sealed chamber in his heart into which he had crumbled every hope and dream he had ever had. He had thought he had sealed his heart with marble, granite; now he saw that what he had mistaken for resolve was only ice, waiting for an angel to come and melt it to expose the vulnerable flesh beneath.

That vulnerability enraged him: he hated the constant anxiety, the tortuous uncertainty he felt when he thought of her; the temporary joy of her presence and the pain of her absence all combined to raging frustration the likes of which he hadn't felt in years.

Erik stood out on the roof for a long time after the lovers had ventured back downstairs to continue the performance, the cold bleeding through him. Slowly, the pain receded, anger seeping in to take its place; and when he finally returned to the theatre, numb with cold, to see the Vicomte standing in his box to cheer enthusiastically as Christine's aria ended amidst a storm of applause, his temper snapped.

"Erik!"

He turned to see Meg running towards him, her expansive pink dress tripping her up.

"She loves him, does she?" He pushed past her, his eyes blazing. "By God, she will not love him long!"

Meg, astonished by his roughness, caught at his sleeve. "Erik, don't!"

With violence unanticipated by Meg, he threw her hands from him. The words he spoke – in a hissing tone of savage fury that frightened Meg easily as much as it surprised her – continued to haunt her for weeks afterwards. "_Don't interfere._"

He disappeared as abruptly as he had arrived, and Meg, with a sinking heart and a feeling of dread veiling her, made her way back to the stage in time for curtain calls.

She was just in time, but so distracted that, had it not been for Nicole, who seized her hand and pulled her out onto the stage with the rest of the _corps_, she would have missed her bow altogether.

It was not until Piangi came out for his bow, and made way for Christine, that the laughter began: demonic laughter that seemed to come from nowhere and penetrate the entire auditorium. Meg felt Nicole clutching at her hand, and heard little Robyn whimper her name. She saw Christine take a step back, horrified terror frozen on her face, and reached out to her, fearing that she might faint.

There was a loud scraping sound of metal on metal, and every eye in the auditorium looked up to the roof. The enormous chandelier, Garnier's pride and joy, was rocking ominously back and forth. Cries rose from the audience; Meg felt the press of bodies around her as the _corps_ crowded together, some of the younger girls in tears. Men were shouting; women screaming; there came a slicing sound of a sword cutting the air, and the chandelier, with an almighty shudder, came crashing down from the ceiling.

Meg screamed; the flames of the falling chandelier illuminated a man standing tall in the rafters, arms folded beneath a thick black cloak.

His eyes were empty as he watched the second tenor leap forward to sweep Christine out of the path of the wreckage of crystal and flame as it crashed into the orchestra pit.


	4. Chapter IV

A/N – The quotation Erik uses to describe Christine is of course from _Antony and Cleopatra_; but as Shakespeare is well and truly out of copyright, I shouldn't think a disclaimer is necessary.

EmailyGirl – thanks for the advice: this chapter, you will see, is shorter :)

-

Meg shook off her temporary paralysis, and extracted her hand from Nicole's. She ran through the wings towards one of Erik's secret passages, wanting only to be near him, to give him some solace in his pain.

"Meg!"

She turned at the sound of her mother's voice to see her pushing through the crowd of terrified dancers and shouting chorus members.

"I must go to him, Mother," she insisted before her mother could speak.

Antoinette shook her head firmly. "You will go back to the dormitories with the other girls. I want you to take special care of Rachel; she is rather shaken."

Meg stared at her mother in disbelief. "What do I care about Rachel? I must go to Erik."

"_No_." Antoinette's tone brooked no argument. "I will go to him. Go back to the dormitories; take care of the younger girls."

"But Mother …"

But Antoinette was gone. Enraged, Meg tangled one hand in her hair, and permitted herself one small sound of frustration. "It isn't _fair_!" She willed back tears.

Making a massive effort to contain herself, she turned back to the other members of the _corps_, and for the first time heard the high-pitched keening coming from Rachel, who was cowering on the stage. Nicole had her arms around her in an ineffectual attempt at comfort, but the younger girl was still sobbing uncontrollably, and several of the other dancers looked ready to join her. Meg sighed. She walked over to Rachel and, releasing Nicole from her duty of care, helped Rachel to her feet. As soon as she was sure the younger girl was not going to faint, she shepherded the girls back to the dormitories.

Had Antoinette been watching, she would have been proud of her daughter. Flighty, scatty, insubstantial as she was apt to be, Meg could always be depended on in a crisis to draw on the unsuspected reserves of inner strength that lay hidden beneath a mass of golden curls and the brightest smile in all the Opera House.

Several hours after Meg had guided the _corps_ back to their dormitories and settled the younger girls down for the night, Christine was brought back to the dormitory by Raoul. They hovered together in the doorway, talking in low voices so as not to wake the sleeping ballet rats; Raoul touched her hair with a soft, solicitous inquiry; Christine nodded wanly; and with a chaste kiss goodnight, he left and Christine quietly got into bed without undressing.

When Meg rose later in the night to fetch a glass of water, she saw Christine still awake, lying on her back, with her doll in her arms, her eyes full of tears.

-

When Antoinette reappeared the following morning, grim-faced and tired, she did not elaborate on her encounter with Erik the previous night, saying only that he was not of a mind to receive visitors for a time.

When Meg finally slipped away from her mother's watchful eye to venture down into the cellars to see him, she could hear music pounding through the catacombs before she even neared the house. The music frightened her: it pulsed with rage and pain, a savage expression of grief. When she arrived at the house, its front door was locked, and she could not make herself heard by Erik over the cacophony of sound coming from inside.

Miserable, heartsore, she returned above ground. Her mother regarded her shrewdly, but made no comment.

-

It was a joyous day for Meg when, several months later, Erik finally made his way above ground to see her.

He looked thin and tired, and she did not dare to broach the subject of the night the chandelier had fallen; but he was kind to her and gentle: indeed, almost the Erik she had always known and loved.

He spoke of the approaching masquerade ball. Ever since Meg could remember, it had been a tradition between them to go to the ball together, both fantastically disguised in elaborate costumes. There was a decidedly ostentatious streak in Erik's character which found wicked delight in the opportunity to join other people in public: the bright colours and exultant music of a ball had always appealed to him in a way that amused Meg. They would dance, and talk, and laugh: some of Meg's happiest memories were from the Opéra's annual masked balls.

To Meg's intense disappointment, he did not suggest that they should go together; but she was so relieved to see something of Erik as he had been before Christine resurfacing in him that her disappointment was easily bearable.

Looking back on this brief period of happiness before the masquerade ball when Erik came to her several times a week, Meg knew that she should have realised that he was planning something. He was more cheerful than he had been in a long time; and again, Meg dared to hope that Christine's engagement to Raoul – now common knowledge around the Opéra, for all Christine's efforts to minimise its importance – had finally freed Erik of his obsession.

-

The night of the masquerade arrived clear and starlit. Meg looked beautiful clad in a flowing gown of pale pink silk with her hair spilling down her back in shining golden curls.

It was a shame, reflected Antoinette as she watched her daughter's barely contained excitement as she readied herself for the ball, that Erik's eyes would unquestionably be elsewhere that evening.

Meg was nursing a glass of pink champagne and watching the dancers, twisting one long curl around her finger. She was bored. She had spent the past half hour looking around the ballroom in search of Erik, but he had not yet materialised; she was beginning to doubt he was intending to come at all.

"What's this?" She looked around, startled, at the unexpected voice coming from behind her. "The future prima ballerina of the Opera Populaire without a partner?"

Meg smiled as she beheld Erik standing before her. He was resplendent in scarlet, with a crimson and silver mask that concealed his entire face.

"You look lovely," he said with gentle sincerity, and Meg blushed beneath her white eye mask. "Will you dance?"

Meg's heart leapt; but his next words deflated her even as he took her into his arms and led her onto the dance floor.

"Where is Christine tonight?"

Meg, resisting the urge to scream, shrugged in what she knew was a very unladylike manner.

"I don't think she's here yet. I haven't seen her."

She could sense Erik's frown even behind the full-faced mask he wore.

"Is she not intending to come?"

Meg shrugged again, frustration mounting inside her. She was beginning to be uncertain what was worse: to see Erik frequently and endure his constant questions about _Christine_, always Christine – gone entirely was that selfless solicitude that had so endeared him to her as a small child – or to bear his absence entirely, warm in the memories of the Erik she had known.

The answer to that question came to her a very few minutes later, when the concierge announced, "The Vicomte de Chagny and Mademoiselle Christine Daaé", and Erik stilled, ceasing to dance.

"Oh … Meg …" he breathed.

It might not have been so bad, Meg thought miserably, if every pair of eyes in the room had turned to look at Christine at the same time. But no; Christine looked much as she always did: pretty in a wan, washed-out sort of way, and those eyes that did turn towards her were largely female ones, sad with envy as they watched the tender way Raoul attended to her.

Erik resumed the dance, but his customary grace was gone, and Meg knew that he was still watching Christine over her head.

"She's not _that_ pretty," she muttered sullenly, and heard Erik laugh softly.

"That she did make defect perfection," he murmured. Meg did not recognise the quotation, but understood his meaning, and anger boiled up inside her.

"She isn't perfect!"

She did not realise how loudly she was speaking until she saw her mother's head go up sharply at the sound of her voice.

"She's not perfect," she repeated, in a lower voice.

She was startled to feel Erik remove himself from the dance and, taking her hand, draw her from the dancefloor.

"Come with me."

He led her to a small alcove off the main ballroom, and bade her take a seat on the small carved wooden bench.

"Tell me what's wrong," he requested quietly.

"Nothing," she mumbled, and saw him arch an eyebrow in response.

"I just …"

He made an elegant, encouraging gesture with one hand, and came to sit beside her.

"I just feel … lonely," she finished lamely, staring resolutely down at her hands. "I feel I'm losing my best friend."

When she finally gathered the courage to look up into his eyes, she found him looking troubled.

"I had thought that it was of your own volition that you do not see much of Christine anymore."

Startled, Meg looked up, her cheeks flaming as she realised Erik's mistake.

"Not her!" she burst out. "You."

The moment the word was out of her mouth, she felt her cheeks flame hot with embarrassment, and began to talk quickly to prevent him from speaking.

"You are always with Christine," she rushed on, before her courage could fail her. "And when you're not, you talk about her. It's as though I never see Erik anymore."

He gave a small, sad laugh, and turned away. "I fear that loss is not a great one."

"How can you _say_ that?" Meg rose in frustration, looking like a small, angry cat. "How can you _say_ that when you know you are everything to me?"

She saw Erik's eyes change behind his mask, and turned away, unhappiness spreading through her.

"Is it so unwelcome to you?" she asked miserably. "Why is it so inconceivable that I should feel about you the way you do about her?"

The long silence that ensued was broken by the rustle of his clothing as he stood, and Meg closed her eyes as his hands touched her shoulders. She felt his lips brush a chaste kiss against her hair.

"Forgive me," he whispered, and was gone.

Meg let out her breath in a gasp, and sank to her knees on the cold stone floor, tears soaking through her fingers as she covered her face with her hands.

-

Antoinette's eyes scanned the ballroom, frowning slightly beneath her formal black eye mask. She had seen Erik and Meg leave the room together well over half an hour ago, and neither had yet returned.

She murmured a silent prayer that her daughter would not be inspired by champagne and memories of previous, happier masked balls to make a confession she would later regret.

Her eyes rested on Christine and Raoul, who were standing at the edge of the dancefloor, speaking softly together. He touched her hair, and she laughed, moving closer to stand in his embrace.

Antoinette smiled. It was good to see Christine smile again: since the last disastrous performance of _Il Muto_, she had been quiet and withdrawn, and Antoinette suspected that her maestro's fit of temper had affected her more deeply than Raoul liked to admit. Even now, as they stood together, they looked more like brother and sister than the wildly in love young couple all the Opéra assumed them to be. Antoinette knew that she had refused to wear Raoul's ring on her finger: it lay instead on a slim gold chain, resting over her heart. That Raoul was earnest in his desire to make her his wife Antoinette did not doubt for a moment; but run as she might to the safety of her childhood friend's arms, Christine could not quite hide the flicker of doubt, or perhaps indecision, in her eyes when he bent to kiss her.

There was a cracking noise like a thunderclap, the lights of the ballroom flickered, and several ballet rats screamed. The ballroom was headed by an enormous gilded flight of stairs leading to the auditorium: at the top of the stairs appeared a figure, tall and elegant, power apparent even in his apparently relaxed posture. Clad in silver and crimson, he held a leather case under his arm, and extended a hand towards the managers in an exaggerated gesture of courtesy.

"Good evening, gentlemen."

He took a step down the stairs, and those dancers nearest to him scattered. Raoul drew Christine protectively into his arms.

"It is good to see the Opera House looking so prosperous again." He gestured to the opulent decorations of the ballroom, and glanced behind him to the auditorium. "The renovations are … most attractive."

He laughed softly, menace in the sound.

"Come now, gentlemen, your surprise is unworthy of you: ghosts do not die, after all. You will be pleased to learn that my absence has not been for nothing: I have been putting the finishing touches to the first production of the new season." He indicated the case under his arm. "A dramatic opera in four acts, entitled _Don Juan Triumphant_." Light danced briefly in his eyes, and Antoinette knew that under his mask, he was smiling. "You will, I am sure, be able to anticipate my casting requirements;" – Christine stepped closer to Raoul – "but just to refresh your memories, the score comes complete with full instructions." His eyes darkened. "Let us have none of last season's foolishness: you know I do not like to be disobeyed."

He held out the case, and when no one stepped forward to claim it, tossed it with a sound of contempt to Andre, who caught it and held onto it as though he did not know what to do with it.

But Erik was no longer looking at the managers. He had stepped further down the stairs, his eyes now fixed on Christine; as Antoinette watched and the ballet rats twittered with terrified excitement, he extended one hand to her, and – ignoring Raoul's hand insistent on her arm – Christine stepped forward to take it.

Antoinette saw her daughter step back into the ballroom, her face set and cold beneath her mask, as Christine moved forward and Erik took her hand.

He raised one hand to touch her hair. "You look very beautiful," he said in a voice so low that only those standing close to them could hear. "I would question, however, your choice of jewellery …"

He slipped deft fingers beneath the chain she wore, and lifted it from her neck. He quirked one eyebrow at the ring, offering her an opportunity for explanation.

"Freedom is not so easily bought, my dear," he hissed, when she did not avail herself of it. "The Devil has played his song for you, and he _will_ collect his fee!"

He tore the necklace from her neck; there was a blinding flash of light and an explosion accompanied by clouds of choking smoke; and even as Raoul rushed forward, his sword drawn, the Phantom of the Opera was gone.

Christine's hand clutched emptily at the spot on her chest where her necklace had lain. She swayed; and Raoul caught her as her strength gave way and she sank to the floor.

The shouting and confused panic that accompanied this scene was startlingly reminiscent of the night of _Il Muto_. It was the memory of that night that drove Antoinette to action: stepping forward, she addressed Raoul, who was helping Christine to her feet.

"Monsieur le Vicomte."

He looked around, and seemed displeased by her presence.

"Not now, Madame Giry, please."

Settling his arm protectively around Christine's shoulders, and pushing away the inquiries of the managers and other revellers, he led her away.

Antoinette went up to her daughter, who was standing very still, steadily drinking a glass of champagne. She was very pale.

Antoinette asked gently if she was all right; Meg responded coolly and flatly that she was.

"I saw you and Erik go out together earlier," she remarked, hoping to elicit some reaction from this pale, cold child.

"We went to get a breath of fresh air. It is very warm in here."

"And yet you look very pale."

"Perhaps I have stood outside too long."

"Meg –"

"Mother, don't _fuss_!" Meg snapped, putting her glass sharply down on the table. "Excuse me, I think I am overtired. If you will give me leave to go, I think I shall retire now."

Without waiting for permission, she walked away, ignoring the greeting of little Rachel, who looked very pretty in a light green fairy costume.

Antoinette watched the hurt expression on little Rachel's face as Meg walked coldly out of the ballroom. She lifted her daughter's glass of champagne into her hands, rolling the smooth glass between her palms, and wondered what had become of the sweet, happy little girl who had once given the Phantom of the Opera a rag doll as the most wonderful gift she could imagine.


	5. Chapter V

A/N – As requested, Antoinette's past and more Meg angst. And before everyone gets angry with Erik, do remember that _Don Juan_ was completed long before Meg told him how she was feeling.

The Bible quotation is from Exodus 34 of the King James Version, if anyone's interested; and the name Carbury comes from Anthony Trollope's _The Way We Live Now_.

This chapter is for John Owen Jones, who left Phantom on Saturday, and for everyone else who will miss him as much as I will. HM's will never be the same again.

Meg lay on her bed, perfectly still, her eyes burning behind closed lids. The rest of the _corps_ had gone to rehearsal, all solicitously concerned for her, all faithfully promising to tell her mother that she was unwell. Nicole had offered to stay with her, but had been rebuffed.

She did not open her eyes as she heard the quick, precise sound of her mother's footsteps entering the room.

"You won't be ready for the opening of _Don Juan_ if you don't come to rehearsal." Antoinette did not sound reproachful, and Meg sat up.

"I'm not going to be in _Don Juan_." She wanted to sound steady and resolute, but tears somehow crept into her voice and made her defiant statement the pitiful whine of a child.

Antoinette sat down on the edge of her daughter's bed.

"Why not?" she asked evenly.

Meg took her copy of the libretto from her bedside table. "He has cast me as a prostitute." She shook the folder savagely, and half of the pages spilled onto the floor. "In the great work of his life, she is his wronged, virginal heroine, and I am a _whore_." She threw the folder to the floor, ignoring the hot tears that spilled down her cheeks. "He may be able to frighten her into performing roles she doesn't want; not me."

She evaded her mother's hand. "Don't try to cosset me as though I were five years old. I won't do it, and that's all there is to it."

Antoinette Giry stepped precisely through the caverns, avoiding the pools of standing water where damp had dripped from the ceiling, her lantern illuminating walls slick with water and green algae.

She was confident in her route: this was a path she had trodden many times before. Nevertheless, she set her lantern down with a louder-than-necessary clatter several times, clicking her hard-soled shoes consciously against the rock as she walked: she was fully conscious of the wisdom of making Erik aware of her presence in the lair before she came close enough to his house to incite suspicion in him.

When he finally materialised out of the darkness to meet her, she handed him her lantern with deliberate courtesy and followed him calmly through the cellars to his house.

Once there, she sat easily down in one of the thickly-stuffed armchairs while Erik disappeared into the kitchen to produce tea, and glanced around the room. A leather-bound book of thick, high-quality paper lay on the table next to her: picking it up, she glanced through it. The first pages were filled with sketches of the ballet _corps_ – Antoinette recognised her daughter's dainty features more than once – and the chorus, in various garbs from different operas, finely-executed overviews of life in the Opéra. As Antoinette continued to look through the pages, she saw the swiftly-drawn sketches of the Opera House's employees give way to a single enduring theme: Christine in ballet dress, graceful in movement as she extended a hand towards the light; silent and melancholy in her dressing room; closely-observed, minute depictions of the delicate contours of her face; in colour and ink and charcoal, countless replicas of her face and body in every conceivable situation around the Opera House. Towards the end of the sketchbook, Antoinette began to notice subtle differences in the pictures: Christine was more beautiful, more distant, her flaws imperceptibly smoothed out; an ideal depiction of a remotely worshipped goddess instead of the intimate representation of a lover's face. She did not look quite real, and Antoinette might have fancied she was looking at a porcelain doll.

The last picture in the sketchbook was drawn in gentle, soft pastel colours with delicate, precise lines. In it, Christine stood encircled by Raoul's arms, her head resting on his chest. Their hands were linked: on the fourth finger of Christine's left hand, half-hidden in Raoul's hand, a slim diamond engagement band caught the light.

Beneath contented, half-closed eyes, Christine was smiling.

Antoinette looked up as Erik re-entered the room, stopping abruptly as he saw his sketchbook in her hands.

"In general, I like them," she remarked, conversationally. "There are one or two I'm not so fond of" – she turned a few pages to a rendering of Christine in charcoal, lying asleep on the couch in her dressing room, her hands curled beneath her pillow, her hair riotous around her shoulders, the blanket slipping away from her to expose slender ankles and delicate, tapering feet bare against the soft velvet of the couch – "but as a collection, I think they're rather pretty."

Erik put down the tea tray on the table, and took the book from her hands. He closed it with a snap.

"Thank you," he said coolly, recovering his composure. "However, as I am sure you have not come all this way merely to discuss my artistic aspirations, perhaps you might like to tell me why you have."

Antoinette raised one eyebrow at his unfriendly tone.

"I want to talk about Meg," she said, and saw him draw his head back.

"She was not at rehearsal this morning," he remarked, taking refuge behind a wall of formal courtesy. "I hope that she is not unwell."

"She does not intend to perform."

"What!" For the first time, Antoinette saw real animation in him as he put down his teacup sharply on the table. "Why not?"

Antoinette raised one eyebrow. "What girl of Meg's age would _like_ to be cast as a loose woman in an opera written by the man whose esteem is most important to her?"

Erik appeared bewildered. "But it's the largest part for a dancer in the opera. I thought she would be pleased." His brow furrowed. "I meant it as a compliment."

Antoinette wondered momentarily how Erik and Meg could have been friends for so long, and know each other so well, and yet misunderstand each other so fundamentally.

"You do _know_, I take it, that Meg has formed something of an attachment to you."

Erik's eyes clouded. "She said something of the sort at the masquerade ball." He shook his head distractedly. "She's only a _child_, Antoinette; what am I to say to her?"

"I suggest you don't cite that particular reason, considering that she is less than two months younger than Christine."

His eyes wandered involuntarily to the sketchbook, and he made a sound of abject frustration.

"Who is no more than a child herself. I do _realise_ the absurdity of this situation, Antoinette, never think that I don't!" He threw himself into his chair, angry frustration dissipating into sorrow. "She seems so sad, Antoinette. What can I do to make her smile again?"

Antoinette swallowed the ache in her chest. "Nothing," she said, finally admitting defeat. "All she wants is your love; and that, alas, cannot be given of your own volition."

"My love is worth nothing. Why should she want it?" He shook his head. "She is your daughter, Antoinette, where is your common sense in her?"

Antoinette smiled sadly. "No woman has common sense when she is in love."

Erik did not comment, and Antoinette wondered whether he was remembering the circumstances under which they had first met: a time of Antoinette's life in which she had well proved that maxim true.

_She had been a serious girl even then: ballet was her only love, and while the other girls in the corps were gossiping or sneaking around with suitors, Antoinette was more likely to be found alone in a rehearsal room, stretching or practising the trickier steps from the new production. Erik had watched her and been impressed by her industry: and when he first saw Lord Graham Carbury, a young Englishman with a rich father and a reputation for dissipation, cast an appraising eye over the serious young ballerina, he knew a moment of disapproving anxiety._

_It was inevitable, he later reflected. A girl could not be so alone as Antoinette Giry and still resist the lure of a man's love: and Carbury, through what Erik suspected to be long experience, knew exactly how to win a woman's favour._

_The first time flowers appeared in Antoinette's dressing room, she appeared puzzled, and shared them out amongst the other ballet rats. But as time wore on, the flowers began to be received with a blush of pleasure, and she was less and less often to be found using her spare time to practise ballet or study her books._

_It came as no surprise to Erik when he spied the sober, reserved ballerina crying in one of the small, disused dressing rooms towards the back of the Opera House. He spoke kindly to her – in those days, it was not unusual for the Opera Ghost to speak with members of the corps; it was only as time wore on that he began to assume the mantle of menace that made his comfortable isolation so much easier – and it was with a sinking of the heart that he learned that, before growing tired of her, as he inevitably had, Carbury had managed to seduce Antoinette into his bed. The worst had followed: she was with child._

_At the time, Antoinette seemed more distraught by the loss of the man she loved than by her immediate predicament. A dancer rarely returned to the stage after bearing a child; and Antoinette, all alone in the world after the sudden deaths of her parents three years previously, had nowhere to go during her confinement. The scandal would be ruinous: and Poligny, although an inherently kind man, had surprisingly strict moral values. The rules were well understood among the ballet corps: girls who disgraced themselves could not count upon the Opéra for support._

_Only the Ghost's intervention prevented Antoinette from being expelled from the Opéra on the spot. As it was, she was placed in a convenient, if undistinguished, flat not far from the Opéra for the duration of her confinement, and she returned to the corps, quietly, a year later._

_From this unusual act of kindness on Erik's part had their friendship grown. Erik admired conscientiousness in anyone who worked in the Opéra, and Antoinette's situation had touched him deeply. She was so young, and despite her loss of judgment – and what woman does not err in her judgment when a handsome man promises her the sky? – he believed her to be a good woman with high principles and a capacity to do much good among the other girls. _

_Antoinette, for her part, was desperately lonely after Graham's desertion: a quiet, sober girl, she had never been given much to close female friendships, and the other ballet rats, with hypocrisy that Erik found almost unbearable, shunned her in her disgrace._

_Gradually, hesitantly, had his conscientious observation of her well-being developed into friendship, and when she returned to the Opéra, she took on the intermediary role of his messenger as silent testament to her gratitude._

Hours later, Antoinette gone, Erik sat back in his chair, shaking his head slowly. There was nothing of the young Antoinette's fire in the woman he saw today: she had poured the love she had once given to the worthless Lord Carbury into his child, and she devoted herself to Meg's well-being as utterly as a tigress with her cub. She was fiercely protective of all the girls in her _corps_, and he knew she was determined that none of them should make the same mistakes as she had. Her disapproval was enough to end a budding romance between one of her girls and an enterprising young man before it had even begun; and he found himself wondering, with only the faintest tinge of bitterness, why she had not dismissed Raoul de Chagny as soon as his interest in Christine became apparent.

Even as he asked himself the question he knew the answer. Protect them as she might from the predatory advances of idle young men, Antoinette would never seek to hinder her girls' chances of loving marriages with good men, and Raoul de Chagny was, unquestionably, one of the best.

Damn him.

He lifted his sketchbook into his hands, turning it absently between his fingers, and opened it to the last picture.

Christine stood in Raoul's arms, her eyes half-closed, her hand held loosely by his. Time and again had he sought to draw Christine in his own arms, to picture the smile in her eyes even as his cold fingers closed around hers, but the images were never real. The expression in her eyes, even in one-dimensional charcoal, faded to revulsion as soon as his shadow cast itself over her, and he could not capture the correct perspective between them: the thought of her in his arms was so remote, so impossible, that even his artistic imagination could not manifest itself to make it real.

Erik shut the book and pushed it away from him.

He sat on the sofa for a long time, his hands steepled beneath his chin, thinking.

Antoinette pulled the pins out of her hair and shook her head, allowing her hair to fall loose around her shoulders. She slipped off her shoes. Her head and feet ached, and the skin on her face felt tight.

"_My love is worth nothing. Why should she want it?"_

In that one statement lay the root of the problem between her daughter and Erik. _My love is worth nothing._ Erik could not believe that Meg's feelings were true; for who could love him or want his love in return?

Antoinette rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. Inevitably, as naturally as spring follows winter, her thoughts crossed the Channel, as they always did whenever she allowed herself the luxury of silence to hear her memory speak.

_Graham_.

Almost twenty years on, and still the sound of his name could produce a rush of emotion just beneath her sternum. How she had loved him! And how she had sinned in that love.

She curled her arm around her waist. Love was no excuse, she knew that. She had given away the most precious gift within her keeping to a man who would not marry her; and although she knew there could be no redemption for her, she had so prayed that her sins would not be visited upon her daughter.

Her Bible lay on the table beside her. She did not need to open it to see the words that had so haunted her nights burn before her eyes.

_And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.' _

The Bible's grim prophecy had been true: a lifetime of penance, of rigidly denying herself any freedom that could lead to such weakness again, had not been enough to purge her sin; and now those she loved best were suffering for her fault.

Antoinette's head fell back; for the first time in years her cheeks were stained with tears. It was too late: she had led four young people to the edge of the fire, and now she did not know how to save them from it.

Meg was sitting alone in a rehearsal room, playing the piano. She was a surprisingly precise pianist: years of Erik's tuition had bred a love of accuracy in her, and she had come to find that the piano could provide solace just as dancing could.

Even now, her affection for Erik strangled by anger and hurt, she could derive comfort from reliving the pieces they had played together in happier days.

She was startled when, as she concluded Mozart's _Turkish Rondo_, she heard the sound of applause coming from behind her. She turned, alarmed, to see Raoul de Chagny standing in the doorway. He smiled apologetically as she rose to her feet, her heart hammering with embarrassed surprise.

"Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you." He smiled and gestured to the piano stool. "Please, sit. You play very well."

The fact that Meg was trying hard to be angry with Erik did not prevent her from feeling a slight, automatic antipathy towards his rival in accustomed sympathy with Erik's cause.

"Thank you," she said stiffly. "I don't – but thank you."

She saw a faint shadow of surprise pass over Raoul's handsome face at her ungracious receipt of his harmless compliment before his good manners replaced it with a smile, which faded as he leaned forward.

"Mademoiselle Giry, you must forgive me this intrusion; I would not willingly interrupt your free time, and I will try to make myself as briefly intelligible as possible."

Meg inclined her head, and said nothing.

"You may have heard that Christine Daaé and I are … engaged to be married."

Again, Meg nodded.

"But as you know, all this business with the Phantom has rather upset our plans. You – and your mother, of course –" he added with hasty courtesy "– are his messengers. You must know what we can do to protect her."

"She doesn't need protection," Meg interrupted, feeling indignation begin to spread through her at the Vicomte's well-meaning slander. "He has never hurt her."

"You cannot possibly believe that he never will. He has tried to kill members of the cast before now; he looks upon her as his own. Meg," he reached out to her, seeing her temper mounting, "you must believe me when I say I only want to protect her. I am so afraid for her."

"He loves her too!" Meg shut her eyes and turned her face away. "Just as you do. Why should he be denied the chance to fight for her too?"

She shook her head fiercely. "Enough! I have said too much."

It was not until much later that Meg realised she had, however unwittingly, handed Raoul the one secret that would allow him to pierce Erik's otherwise impenetrable armour.

It was armed with that knowledge that Raoul followed Christine to Perros-Guirec, and although Meg did not learn until many years later what had transpired there, she saw the difference in Erik as soon as he returned. He was so cold: when he spoke of Christine there was ice in his voice, and his demands of perfection in the company's execution of his opera became irrational.

Even Antoinette could not induce him to be reasonable, and Meg began to look forward to the opening night of _Don Juan Triumphant_ with unmixed dread.


	6. Chapter VI

A/N – More changes to the plot here, I'm afraid. In my opinion, _Point of No Return_ doesn't work if Christine realises Erik has taken Piangi's place – and if she doesn't recognise his voice after everything they've been through then she's clearly severely mentally retarded. Hence, in my _Don Juan_, this scene remains the climax of the opera, but the glory is all Christine's: the song is a solo for her, and Don Juan remains silent throughout the scene. Until … ah, but you'll see. :D

The moon – just for the record – is another form for the Roman huntress goddess Diana, who is a symbol of chastity and purity.

For le chat noir, for being my very first squeer. :D

Meg's refusal to perform in _Don Juan_ lasted about three days before she finally caved in to her mother's not unkind but nonetheless relentless pressure. She felt that she would never derive joy from dancing again; and so what did it matter what role she took? Perhaps she would catch the eye of a rich nobleman in the audience, and he would take her away and marry her. Meg took pleasure that felt more like pain from this thought: she would marry somebody else, and never give Erik another thought.

Except that, of course, any rich noblemen in the audience would almost inevitably fall in love with Christine, she thought bitterly. It appeared to be becoming a fashion.

The next day heralded the first rehearsal of the new opera. In specific terms, it was perhaps an exaggeration to call it a rehearsal: the meeting consisted largely of explaining the plot to bewildered chorus members.

Even that was not sufficient for some. Erik would have been vastly amused by the scene that ensued in the ballet _corps_' dormitory after the meeting, little Rachel having complained that she still did not understand the story.

Robyn and Katrina had taken it upon themselves to explain, but the other girls continued to chime in helpfully with additional details until the storytelling became a _corps_-wide effort.

"It's all about Aminta."

"Our Christine!"

"And a man called Don Juan."

"Signor Piangi."

"They're foreigners; that's why they have such funny names."

"And he falls in love with her!"

"But she's in love with another man –"

"Thomas –"

"The second tenor –"

"The handsome one!"

Giggling from Nicole and Anna, supplemented by elbows to Robyn's ribs as she blushed happily.

"Who's completely worthless and won't marry her because his family say he's got to marry someone else …"

"But she doesn't know that."

"And she's torn between them. So finally –"

"Don Juan loses his temper and sends her away …"

"And she comes back to him!"

"And she sings this aria …" Here, various fingers fumbled for the correct page in the script, Anna finally returning triumphant and pressing the sheet into Rachel's hands.

"… accepting her love for him …"

"But he's completely silent …"

"That's symbolic," concluded Anna with ponderous importance.

Vigorous nodding, accompanied by wise looks from the older girls.

"And then he sings to her …" Another sheet of music passed into Rachel's hands.

"And the worthless young man gets his comeuppance …"

"And everybody lives happily ever after."

Somewhat exhausted by their collective recitation of the story of _Don Juan Triumphant_, the ballet rats sat back on Celia's bed and sighed.

Meg, sitting very still on her own bed, pretending to be immersed in a dog-eared copy of du Maurier's _Trilby_, felt bitterness curl like smoke inside her. Her character, the prostitute Carolina, was not even considered important enough to be included in the story's synopsis when compiled by her closest friends. In fact, Carolina was a central part of the story: hoping to win Don Juan herself, it was only through her aid that Don Juan was able to gain access to Aminta. The parallels to her own relationship with Erik were laughably plain; and were it not for the fact that she knew _Don Juan Triumphant_ had been completed many months before the masquerade ball, she would have suspected Erik of drawing inspiration from life.

Rachel was still looking faintly confused.

"I don't quite understand …" she began.

"It doesn't matter, dear," said Lisa in a very worldly-wise tone. "Everybody knows that in opera the plot doesn't matter."

And all the ballet rats nodded vigorous agreement.

As rehearsals went on, Meg came to love the opera with love that felt like the deepest kind of ache in her chest. The music was all fire and light, passion and pain; and to see Christine stumble her way through Aminta's part was acutely frustrating to Meg as it must have been to Erik, silently watching every rehearsal.

Meg could hear how carefully he had crafted the opera for her – every note of music minutely tailored to her voice, her costumes more beautiful than anything in her everyday wardrobe – and she could only imagine his pain at being unable to help her overcome the stumbling blocks of her shy inexperience to rise like a phoenix from the ashes as the blazing diva of his imagination.

Aminta was a mirror image of Christine painted in slightly brighter colours. Although pure and tender, she had such spirit; such fire in her soul; and Christine could never quite shed the confused naiveté that served as a barrier between herself and the image Erik had drawn for her. If Christine was the white of a bridal veil, pale pink and soft yellow, Aminta was the flaming red brilliance of a sunset, the deep blue of an ocean miles out from the shore, the shining silver of a moon so close it made your eyes sting with tears.

Outside rehearsal, Christine was never seen without Raoul's arm protectively around her waist. Both looked tense and drawn; and in spite of his constant, kind devotion to Christine, the dark circles beneath his eyes spoke the toll his love was taking on him.

Meg wondered more than once how two so different men could both be willing to go through hell for the chance of a smile from the pale, thin little girl who now sat huddled on her bed with a blanket around her shoulders, clutching her rag doll to her heart like a talisman.

That Christine was suffering too, Meg did not doubt for a moment. She seemed to grow thinner by the day, and Meg overheard her mother speaking in low, anxious tones to Raoul, saying, "She's not eating enough to keep body and soul together"; and Raoul's response, dejected and weary, "I can't force her to eat, Antoinette". The laughing innocence that had always made Christine such a delightful companion once one had broken through her reserve was never to be seen in her now, and Meg knew that she was suffering with that most prevalent of states with her: indecision.

That Christine was fond of Raoul, there could be no doubt. That she loved him as he loved her, Meg privately felt, was very much less certain. And although Christine transparently feared Erik's temper, his jealousy – and perhaps even the sheer passion that he brought to everything he touched – Meg could see reflected in her eyes just the palest shade of the fire in Erik's own.

She was not yet the sunset; the ocean; the moon; but perhaps, in spite of the trouble she was experiencing capturing the full spectrum of Aminta's colours, she was beginning to absorb a little of her glow.

The afternoon of the first performance of _Don Juan Triumphant_, all of the ballet _corps_ were sent to their dormitories to rest before the performance. After a little token excited gossip – the thrill of performing an opera written by the infamous Opera Ghost had still not quite worn off – the girls all settled down to sleep, having learned from long experience the punishments they could expect if caught out of bed by Madame Giry.

Meg lay very still, but sleep would not come to her. She felt sick with nerves: the very melodramatic streak of Erik's that gave him the ability to write music that could strike at a listener's heart like a physical blow or the whisper of an angel would not permit him to allow the managers' insolence to go unpunished; and she did not dare to think of what form that vengeance might take. In his current state of – well, she would say it – _instability_, he was not likely to be mindful of his own safety.

Quietly, careful not to disturb the other girls, she rose from the bed and padded out into the corridor. She walked down the flight of stairs at the foot of the corridor, and made her way to Christine's dressing room.

She tapped lightly on the door.

"Yes?"

She pushed the door open. Christine was sitting at her dressing table, staring into the mirror reflecting her pale face.

"Oh, Meg!"

To Meg's considerable surprise, Christine leapt up and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm so glad it's you." Meg felt Christine's tears soak into her hair, and she kissed her with a sudden rush of tenderness. Her friend looked so young, and Meg suddenly wanted fiercely to protect her.

Gently, she guided her to the couch, and sat down beside her. She smoothed Christine's dark hair back, and took her hand.

"Are you afraid?"

Christine nodded silently. Then the words rushed forth in a flood:

"I don't know what to do. I'm not good enough – I _know_ I'm not good enough – I need more time. If I let him down …" She shook her head hopelessly, and tears began to seep from her eyes again. "He'll never forgive me. And he's so angry with me in any case …" She clasped Meg's hands. "If anything happens tonight, Meg, I'll never forgive myself. If someone gets hurt …"

Meg had read enough novels to know that she ought to reassure her friend in the strongest possible terms that nobody would get hurt. But Christine's fears were so closely allied to her own that she could not find the words: if Erik lost his temper, the chances were that somebody _would_ get hurt – and the chances were that it would be Raoul.

Christine was looking at her. With her tangled mass of hair and eyelashes still wet with tears, she looked ridiculously like a child.

"You think it too," she whispered. "Meg, tell me how I can stop this. You know him better than anyone –" at Meg's start, she grasped her hands and would not let her go "– oh, yes, I know we don't talk about that – I don't know why, but I know we don't – but you must help me. _I don't want anyone else to get hurt._ It's all my fault; I know that; but I don't know how I can set it right."

With this, she released Meg's hands. Her next words, spoken through the curtain of her hair to her hands, were almost inaudible.

"I don't want to hurt either of them."

"Christine." Meg pushed back Christine's hair, heavy and tangled, behind her ears, and tilted her friend's face up towards her. "Are you telling me –"

Both girls leapt to their feet as the door opened abruptly; Meg felt Christine seize her hands with a terrified instinct that showed just how tightly her nerves were stretched.

"Time moves on, girls."

Meg felt Christine sag against her, tears of silent relief pouring down her face, as Antoinette Giry stepped into the room. She examined Christine, weeping silently against her daughter's shoulder, dispassionately.

"Monsieur Reyer would like to speak with you, Christine." She glanced at her daughter. "And you, Meg – I believe I told the _corps_ to rest before the performance." She ignored her daughter's protest, and gestured towards the door. "Go and practise your piano if you are not inclined to sleep." She stepped towards Christine, whom Meg released, and guided her to her chair with gentle firmness.

"You cannot be expecting Cecile to dress your hair in that state." She picked up a hairbrush from the dressing table, and began to brush Christine's hair with firm, confident strokes. She did not look at her daughter, and Meg recognised the tacit order to leave.

She wandered aimlessly down the corridor. She did not want to go back to the dormitories and endure the aimless chatter of the other girls.

She drew back into the shadows, flattening herself against a pillar, as she heard voices approaching. Raoul, accompanied by a man wearing an official uniform whom Meg did not recognise, with Andre following anxiously behind, was walking briskly down the corridor, speaking in a low voice that sounded tired.

"How many of your men will be positioned around the theatre?"

"One at every exit … one in every box …" Meg heard Andre make a quick protest, but Raoul held up his hand and he refrained, "… and one in the pit to allow for quick access to the stage. Any more and you run the risk of alerting him to our movements."

Raoul nodded sharply. "Very well." He sighed, and Meg could hear weariness in his voice. "Then, God willing, we will all be free of this."

They passed on, and Meg sat down behind the pillar, tucking herself into the small space between the wall and the column itself. The stone floor was cold against her legs.

So that was how it would end. With Erik shot like a dog if he dared to show his face – so to speak – at the first performance of his own opera. Meg stood up slowly, mechanically brushing cobwebs off the skirt of her dress. She walked slowly back to the now-empty dormitories, all the other girls having gone to dress, where she stood over her washbasin and stared at the pale face she barely recognised as her own in the mirror.

Her stomach convulsed, and Meg was violently sick into the washbasin.

The first two acts passed in a haze for Meg. She still felt sick to her stomach with nerves, and had barely been able to remember her steps as she spent her every spare moment looking surreptitiously around the theatre in search of Erik. She had not seen him: but she had seen the armed policemen who stood stiffly at every door.

The climax of the opera was approaching, when Aminta finally confesses her love for her mysterious suitor; and Meg was beginning to be able to breathe again. There had been no accidents; no disembodied voices threatening retribution; Meg could almost believe that Erik so wanted his opera to be a success that he would allow the managers' disobedience to his requests to pass without comment.

Perhaps, she thought, her spirits buoyed by the idea, he even found the idea of all their plans going to waste amusing, and did not intend to satisfy their desire for action that night. He was never a man to be pushed into satisfying the whims of others.

Meg felt Robyn squeeze her hand as Christine sat down on the bench in preparation for her finest aria, and she managed a smile in response.

Don Juan, draped in reams of black silk, stepped out from behind the curtain, closing it efficiently behind him.

Meg stiffened.

Surely there was something familiar about the peculiarly graceful way this ethereal shade moved across the stage, stalking Christine's footsteps?

And … the movement of long white hands, the only part of his body left unhidden by the sweeping black robe … surely there was something familiar about them too.

They were certainly not the rather chubby, short-fingered hands of Ubaldo Piangi.

Meg froze as Don Juan approached Christine and lifted her hand to the false mouth created by his cowl.

Christine, of course, suffering terribly with her customary first-night nerves, made inestimably worse by the unique nature of this particular first night, was blindly following the stage directions and had noticed nothing. Meg remained utterly still, terrified lest someone should notice her reaction to the cloaked figure, paralysed with fear.

_The pit, the pit._ So many marksmen …

She bowed her head in silent prayer; and then found that she could not take her eyes from Erik's hands. Utterly masterful, he exuded charisma and authority; and yet he brought a tenderness to the role that could not have been born but of genuine feeling.

His hands were gentle, tender, inexpressibly sensual as they smoothed Christine's hair, trailed down her arms, lifted her hands in his own … had Meg ever entertained any doubt as to the depth of Erik's feelings for Christine, it would not have survived the sight of his elegant fingers stroking her hair. Safe in the anonymity of his obscuring black cloak, he was finally free to touch her as he had always wanted.

His actions were tender rather than seductive; the hesitant caresses of a man violently in love rather than Don Juan's lustful intrusions.

The scene, which with Piangi in the lead role had always seemed awkward and clumsy – for who _could_ invite poor Piangi's inept caresses in such a way? – was suddenly alive with tenderness, and Meg realised that it was for this purpose that the scene was intended: it was not, as she had thought, a predatory depiction of a master seduction; but a love scene.

It was strange how the scene could be so altered by a silent presence: Don Juan did not speak in this scene – the glory was all Aminta's in her beautiful aria – and yet even in silence Erik's charismatic presence spread out to command the stage as Piangi's never had.

Meg could only wonder at his audacity, to come unarmed into public view – and when was the last time Erik had willingly come into the presence of anyone unfamiliar, for any reason! – into a theatre he knew to be bristling with armed marksmen.

Backstage on opening night was always such a hub of lost ballet slippers and badly-placed props that few had time to stand and watch the performances from the wings. Meg was silently grateful; Reyer was too busy watching Christine to worry about her silent partner, and the managers in their box were doubtless congratulating themselves on the fullness of the audience, and would probably not have noticed any change in their leading man's performance even had they been concentrating on the drama unfolding onstage.

But Carlotta …

Still sulking that the managers had yielded to Erik's demand that Christine should play Aminta, she had discharged her role with the minimum of effort and her best expression of contempt and spent the rest of the performance standing silently in the wings watching her Piangi with a sort of fond, fierce pride.

It was there that she was still standing, and Meg saw a frown slowly cast a cloud over her face. Of course, of all the cast, only she would care enough to focus on Piangi in Christine's moment of glory … and Meg felt her heart freeze with terror as a terrible expression of doubting recognition crept over her face.

Desperate, she rushed over to her.

"Isn't Monsieur Piangi wonderful tonight?" she asked hastily.

Carlotta turned sharply to look at her. There was a long pause.

"_Si_," she said at last. Her face slowly relaxed into a smile. "He is always so."

Meg smiled subserviently and retreated, her heart hammering with relief, satisfied that Carlotta's affectionate pride, once stimulated, would carry her through to the end of the performance.

What Erik had planned for then, she dreaded to imagine.

Meg did not have long to worry. As the climax of the aria approached, Christine approached her now seated suitor from behind and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her face came to rest on the cowl; she let out a clearly audible gasp and pulled away; and Meg realised that she must have felt the hardness of Erik's mask through the material.

Erik turned sharply to face Christine, now standing paralysed behind him. He stood slowly, and reached out to take her hand. As if in a trance, she allowed him to, oblivious to the sudden frissons of excitement and anxiety that were rustling round the theatre as the managers and Raoul evidently realised something was wrong.

Meg felt her fellow dancers begin to cluster around her, rustling with excitement; she heard someone whisper "_The Phantom_ …" and a chorus of stifled exclamations and Hail Marys; through the sudden, subdued rush of noise, she barely heard Erik's whispered words to Christine:

"_Don't go._"

Christine shook her head, her eyes wide.

Meg could tell from the tension suddenly apparent in Erik's posture that he was more than aware of the marksmen slowly filling the auditorium.

"So this is how it is to be?" he asked, very softly.

Christine glanced around, an instinctive nervous reaction, and Erik made an irritated gesture with one hand.

"You thought, perhaps, that I was _unaware_?" Menace was slowly bleeding into his voice.

Christine shook her head fearfully.

"You would have let them shoot me in the back."

"No."

"Put me on display."

"No!"

"_No?_" Erik was almost shouting now, his precarious grip on his temper trembling. Meg saw Raoul rush through the wings on the other side of the stage, knocking two stage-hands out of his way, and it was with inexpressible relief that she saw her mother catch hold of his arm before he could rush blindly onto the stage. Raoul tried to push her away; but Madame Giry gripped his arm and hissed something into his ear that stilled his rush.

The audience was holding its collective breath. Searing as the opera had been that evening, even the Paris elite could tell that the drama unfolding onstage before them was not the one contained in the conductor's score.

Erik was shaking his head slowly. "I trusted you." He lowered his head briefly, and Meg realised that he was striving to contain himself. When he spoke again, his voice was acidic with venom. "What happens now, then, my _dear_?" A sweeping gesture from his hand took in the whole auditorium. "The moment I move far enough away from you to ensure a clear line of fire, I will doubtless be treated to a bullet in the back. Is that how you want this to end?"

As if to demonstrate, he took a step away from her, spreading his arms, and Meg almost passed out as she heard the unmistakable clicking of pistols being cocked. "_Is this what you want?_"

"No!" Christine reached out desperately towards him, and Meg heard Raoul bark a short order to the marksmen to hold their fire. He, at least, would not risk Christine's safety to secure a dead ghost. Meg was silently grateful: she was not sure that the managers would have taken such pains to ensure her safety.

"_This is what you have asked for!_" Erik snatched his hand away from hers. "Why can you not, for once in your life, have the strength of will to carry something _through_?"

Meg gave a low moan, paralysed with fear, and felt Robyn clasp her arm.

"Meg, what's the matter?"

Meg could not speak, could not move. Her lips formed his name, terror blinding her, and it was only Robyn's hand on her arm that kept her from throwing herself onto the stage to protect him. Through her haze of terror, she barely heard Christine's next words.

"I'm sorry."

She reached for him, and Meg's fear mingled with anguish as she saw Erik's expression soften as her hand touched his unmasked cheek. He stepped towards her in a rush, his anger melting, as it always would if she spoke to him gently or touched him without fear, into hope visible even through the mask.

Meg heard Raoul's curse even across the stage, broken halfway through as Christine's hand moved across Erik's face and ripped away his mask.

Screams rang out from around the auditorium, and Meg caught at Robyn, suddenly feeling faint.

She heard herself whisper, "Oh my God …" and heard Robyn gasp and whisper a Hail Mary, supporting Meg as best she could.

She had never dreamed … never anything so utterly and unimaginably hideous.

Erik's reaction was unthinkably swift: after the momentary anguish of such an absolute betrayal, he snarled and somehow – Meg, caught in horror, was too slow to see – they disappeared to mounting confusion and panic.

Meg swayed and sank to the floor, Robyn suddenly gone, and closed her eyes.

"Meg!" She opened her eyes to see Raoul at her side, grasping her arm. "You know the way to his house."

Meg shook her head, but he took a firm hold of her by both arms and gave her a shake.

"Don't lie to me!" Making an obvious effort to calm himself, he lowered his voice. "You must take me there. Meg, he could hurt her … if anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself."

Beseeching brown eyes looked into Meg's, and her hesitation gave way.

She nodded.

From the wings, Antoinette watched as her daughter and the Vicomte disappeared together from the panic-stricken crowd, and crossed herself.


	7. Chapter VII

A/N – Et voila, the final lair … thanks are due to Stephanie for having helped me with it and all the lovely reviewers who brighten up my day. :)

And Julie – here's my chapter; now where's yours?

It had been Piangi. Meg felt sickness spread through her as she and Raoul plunged downwards, through the dark passages towards Erik's home. She had seen the twisted face, horribly discoloured in death; the noose lying beside him looking almost innocuous. The thought that Erik could kill – so easily, with so little provocation, for what had poor Piangi ever done to him? – she dared not dwell on, for fear that the ghastly impossibility of it all would overwhelm her.

The sound of Carlotta's sobs was the most terrible thing she had ever heard.

Meg stumbled, and Raoul caught her, righting her on her feet, but not allowing her to slow.

"Be careful." His voice was not unkind, but there was a steel in him tonight that she had never seen before: beneath his customary aristocratic amiability lay strength that could, perhaps, only be tapped into when someone so cherished as Christine was threatened.

Meg hastily put down the disloyal thought that Christine might be luckier to marry Raoul than Erik, and realised with sick dread that they had reached the beach. Erik had lowered the portcullis – a defence against intruders that Meg had once teased him about – but past the bars of the portcullis, the door to the house was open. Christine stood outside, her face turned away from them. Meg could hear her speaking tearfully, and it was only by the single movement that caused light to reflect across his mask that gave her to realise Erik was standing just behind her, concealed in the shadows.

Meg threw herself forward, grasping at the gate.

"Erik, let me in – please!"

Raoul was beside her, banging his fists on the portcullis gate with such force that Meg winced empathetically, anticipating the bruise he would have tomorrow. He did not even seem to notice.

"Let me in!"

Christine rushed to him, and he caught her hands through the gate, kissing her fiercely. She was weeping, and he touched her face tenderly with one hand.

"Hush, my love. It will be all right; I'll protect you."

Astonishingly, Meg thought, Christine appeared to be comforted by this.

Raoul transferred his attentions to Erik, who was standing very still, half in shadow, with his arms folded. Meg could not see his face through the kindness of his selective darkness, and his figure, tall and menacing in the gloom, was imposing and threatening as never before.

"Let me _in_!" Raoul hammered his fist against the gate again, producing a dull thudding sound against the heavy metal. The futility of the exercise evidently infuriated him; he looked around in frustration and grabbed hold of the gate, shaking it hard.

"For God's sake, I love her!"

Erik stepped out of the shadows. He was nodding slowly, one finger stroking contemplatively across his jaw.

"Touching. Unimaginative, yes, but doubtless heartfelt; very moving, I'm sure."

His face hardened.

"But inadequate. You'll have to come up with something _considerably_ more affecting than that if you really want to join this little _soirée_."

Raoul paused, evidently rather taken aback. "You can't keep her here against her will!" he protested.

Erik shook his head again, gesturing patronisingly in the air with one hand. His voice was that of a schoolteacher explaining something for the umpteenth time to a dull student. "Again, inadequate; you see, that simply isn't true. I can."

In acute frustration, Raoul brought his hand down on the gate with a crash.

"Damn you! Can't you see that you can't make her love you by locking her up five storeys underground!"

At this, Erik moved, and his voice, when it smoked from somewhere out of the darkness, was like ice.

"Better, Monsieur le Vicomte. Deserving of ingress, I think."

The portcullis gate lifted slightly, and Raoul threw himself under it and rushed to Christine. He gathered her, sobbing hysterically, into his arms.

Meg scrambled under the portcullis gate and heard it clang shut behind her. She turned; and met Erik's eyes. For a moment, his face was unconcealed by shadows, and again she reeled at the enormity of what he had always hidden from her. She saw him flinch at her instinctive reaction to his face, and at once felt ashamed; but it took only a moment for him to resume the cold façade of indifference and, affecting mocking courtesy, he gestured for her to sit.

"Do take a seat, my dear." His voice was a hiss. "You can collect your thirty pieces of silver later, I'm sure."

Meg felt as if all the breath had been snatched from her lungs. The savage bitterness in Erik's voice told her more clearly than his stinging words could ever do that he would never forgive her for her part in the night's events.

He turned to Raoul and Christine, and his voice became level again, dangerously calm.

"As I was saying, Monsieur le Vicomte …" Raoul turned from Christine and started with alarm as he saw the closed portcullis. He drew Christine protectively closer to him, but Erik was still speaking.

"A more effective appeal to the monster's better nature this time …"

And suddenly, so fast that Meg was never quite sure how it happened, he sprang at Raoul. Christine screamed; and Erik's noose appeared around the Vicomte's neck, his hands closed with savage, inhuman strength on Raoul's shoulders.

"But cruel," he hissed in the younger man's ear. "And what on earth makes you think that I would relinquish her to one who is such an expert in hurting other people so acutely?" He laughed viciously. "She already has me for that." He pushed Raoul roughly away from him, and the younger man staggered, the noose tightening around his neck as he lost his balance. He choked and managed to regain his footing; Erik laughed contemptuously and turned his back on the three younger people.

Christine rushed forward to Raoul, tugging ineffectually at the lasso around his neck. With a snarl, Erik turned back to her and seized her arm; Meg heard Christine choke out a gasp, and rushed forward, catching at Erik's sleeve.

"Erik, no!"

He moved like lightning and threw her away from him with one violent motion of his arm. She stumbled and fell heavily, catching her head on a protruding lever on the organ. Dazed, she raised one hand to her head, feeling sticky blood on her fingers, Christine's sobs sounding suddenly a very long way away. She closed her eyes against the pain.

She must have fainted then, she later realised: the next time she opened her eyes, Erik was seated above her at the organ, his fingers spread over the keys in a grotesque parody of the experience that she and Christine must have shared of curling at his feet while he ensnared the senses and enthralled the soul with the exquisite talent that was so uniquely his.

Meg barely had time to feel the rush of pain that Erik had not only, for the first time in their entire relationship, raised his hand to her in anger, but that he apparently cared so little that he could just leave her unconscious on the floor without the faintest pang: as she moved her head to accommodate the swimming behind her eyes and the piercing pain throbbing at the back of her skull, her eyes lighted on Christine crumpled on the floor on the other side of the room. Only the shaking of her shoulders that indicated tears gave Meg to know that she was still alive.

Her first instinct was to go to her friend; but one glance at the stone mask blazing with the flame of fury that was Erik's face was enough to shrivel her courage and make her shrink back against the floor, praying desperately for rescue.

The monstrous tableau – two girls in opera dress prone on the floor, one man choking for breath in the cruelty of the strangling noose of a master murderer, and the puppet-master himself motionless above them all – was still for what seemed like an age, the silence broken only by Christine's sobs and the occasional choking gasp from Raoul as his strength faded.

The first to speak, perhaps surprisingly, was Raoul. His voice hoarse, he breathed Christine's name and extended one hand to her.

"Christine …"

Sobbing, unsteady on her feet, Christine stumbled up and ran across to him, burying her face in his shoulder. Raoul wrapped his free arm around her, kissing her hair.

"My love …" he whispered. "Don't be a fool …"

Christine looked up into his face, tears streaming down her cheeks. She kissed him desperately, stroking her fingers over his face, clinging to him as though she would never let him go.

Terrified, Meg glanced up at Erik, petrified at the thought of what he might do; how he might react to such a display of the love he had fought so hard to kill. But as her eyes lit on his face, her heart flooded with compassion: the only recognisable emotion visible in the twisted mass of scars that formed his face was abject despair. Her fear dying under this recognition of the Erik she knew, she reached out to him.

"Erik …"

He started violently at her touch, and his face hastily hardened against her examination. He stared at Raoul and Christine, and the stone of his face blazed into ice-flaming rage. He threw Meg's hand from him and stood, towering and ominous over his captive audience.

"So be it!" he snarled, his eyes snapping once again with ire. He took a towering, menacing step towards Raoul that swallowed up the ground between them. Meg fell back, terrified: he had never seemed so tall before; never had his elegant posture held so much of intimidation.

"_No!_"

Christine moved to stand in front of Raoul, spreading her arms across him in a futile gesture of protection.

"Please … please don't hurt him."

There was a tense silence, which was at last broken by Erik. He gave a barking laugh that did not sound quite true to Meg's ears. Was there almost a break in his voice; a sound edging on the side of grief?

"Very romantic, my dear. Very touching. A truly noble gesture. I fear, however, that caught up in your moment of heroism, you may have forgotten the consequences of such nobility."

Christine shook her head tightly. "No …" Her eyes closed in momentary grief. "I haven't forgotten. I will stay with you …"

"**_No!_**"

The violence of Raoul's reaction took all three of the other members of the tableau by surprise. His hand clamped down on Christine's wrist, dragging her away from her protective stance in front of him and forcing her away from him.

"_No_, do you hear me? I _won't_ let you do this!" Forcing Christine behind him with one strong arm, he addressed Erik savagely. "She _won't_ bow to your heinous threats a moment longer! She's going home. My life may be yours – but she is _not_." He threw back his head in preparation for the violence of Erik's reaction, and Meg cowered back against the organ, paralysed with horror.

There was a moment of horrified silence, in which the world seemed to be holding its breath; and then Erik let out a snarl of rage and rushed at Raoul. Meg sobbed and staggered impotently to her feet; and Christine freed herself from Raoul's restraining arm and rushed forward.

What happened next Meg was never quite sure. When she thought about it later, she thought that it was probably the shock of the unexpected touch of Christine's hand that had slowed Erik's arm enough to prevent him from breaking Raoul's neck on the spot; but she was never quite sure.

All she knew was that after Christine caught hold of Erik's arm, they stared at each other for a long moment in silent communication, and the resurfacing of the light of love in Erik's eyes almost convinced Meg that he had come to his senses.

Erik raised one hand to touch Christine's cheek, and this time Meg was sure that it was regret she saw in his eyes: self-castigation for having forced her into so cruel a decision.

But Raoul – brave and ill-advised in every situation – strained against the rope, and the chain of light that had been forming in the air between Erik and Christine was abruptly severed.

Erik took a curt step away from Christine and turned his back on her.

"Enough time, my dear," he said coldly, and Meg shivered at the ice in his voice. "Even a four-hour opera cannot allow for so great a delay between acts while the heroine makes up her mind."

Meg, seeing that Raoul was preparing to speak, ran to him and silenced him with a touch and a fervent plea into his ear. Erik saw her move and laughed bitterly.

"The two most beautiful women in this Opera House petitioning for your life, de Chagny; you have the devil's own luck." Raoul was silent; Meg reeled at the appellation; and Erik transferred his attention to Christine. "Time waits for no man, my dear."

The very dust mites golden in the candlelight seemed to hang in the air as Christine slowly turned to look at Erik. Meg clasped Raoul's arm as Christine took a slow step towards Erik, her eyes never leaving his face.

She raised one hand to touch the long scar running from Erik's forehead to where it disappeared beneath his hair at his jawline, the only scar on his face inflicted by another force than Mother Nature; and suddenly she drew back her hand and slapped him as hard as she could across the face.

Erik reeled from the blow; but before he could react, Christine had seized his shoulders and pulled his face down to hers. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed her lips to his and drew him close up against her, kissing him as though her heart was breaking.

Raoul and Meg stood stunned, and Meg found tears forming unbidden in her eyes. The shocked disbelief dissolving into overwhelming love on Erik's face told her more plainly than any words could ever have done that though she wait a hundred years, his heart could never belong to her: it would forever be the possession of the frail little girl standing before her in a too-long opera dress who suddenly seemed stronger than a thousand emperors as she tightened her arms around Erik and pressed her face into his shoulder.

As Raoul and Meg watched, aghast and agonised respectively, she lifted her face to him, and, looking deeply into his eyes, brought her lips to his again.

Meg watched Erik's eyes close, saw the tears slide out from beneath the misshapen eyelids, and realised that even now, he could not bring himself to touch her. One hand almost stroked her hair; the other hovered at her waist, hesitant, fearful.

It was Erik who broke the contact and moved away from her.

Christine remained standing, one hand touching her lips, tears beginning to stream down her face again. All at once she swayed and her legs crumpled beneath her; she sank to the floor in a cloud of silk and lace.

Meg rushed to her side. She did not, could not bear to look at Erik: a single glimpse of his face had shown her the terrible anguish darkening his eyes; and as she knelt beside her best friend and drew her into her arms, neither girl saw Erik burn through the rope that would free Raoul from its rough stranglehold.

Raoul was on the floor beside the girls in a moment, pulling Christine, limp and unresisting, into his arms.

"Please …" For the first time that night, there was no fight in his voice. "Please … don't make her do this. Take my life; _anything_ … but not this …"

Meg felt, rather than saw, Erik's shadow bearing down upon them, and closed her eyes, unable to bear the grief imprinting itself on her friend's face. He seized Raoul's shoulder roughly and the Vicomte turned, shielding Christine with his body against the living shadow above him.

"Go."

"I won't leave her!" Raoul pulled Christine closer to him. "I won't let you do this!"

"Get out!" Erik's voice crescendoed on a peal of grief. "Take her and go; leave me …" His voice broke. "Get out!"

Raoul scrambled to his feet, pulling Christine up with him. Erik had turned his back on them and had sunk to the ground beside the organ, grasping the highly-carved body of the instrument for support, leaning his head against the cool metal.

His voice rose again, anguished torment made sound.

"Take her … take the boat … go!"

Raoul grasped Meg's hand and pulled her urgently to her feet.

"Come on."

He dragged the two women out of the room. Carried along by his frantic energy, it was not until they had reached the shore and Raoul released them to fumble desperately with the mooring of the boat that Christine looked back towards the lair.

Meg saw her hesitate, and then, as Raoul looked up from the moorings to usher the girls into the boat, she took a step back.

Raoul's eyes darkened. "Oh no. Christine, don't think it. Come on." He reached for her, holding the boat steady with one foot, but she shook her head and took a step back from him.

She slipped the ring that Erik had given to her off her finger and held it out.

"I have to give it back to him." Her voice was small but unwavering.

Raoul caught hold of her arm as she turned to re-enter the lair.

"Christine, are you _insane_?"

She looked up into his eyes. "Probably," she whispered. Tears filled her eyes, and before Raoul could stop her, she had pressed a desperate kiss to his cheek, and disappeared back into the labyrinth.

Raoul made to go after her; but Meg caught his arm.

"Not you."

Raoul looked ready to explode. "You're as insane as she is! _Not me_ …"

"He'll kill you if he sees you in there again tonight. I'll go."

Without waiting for a reply, she hurried back into the darkness of the passage. Raoul stood perfectly still for a long time, dumbfounded. He wanted desperately to go back into that hell of death and drag Christine home with him, where she could be _safe_ … but something about Meg's eyes when she had warned against it haunted him.

Almost the same expression Christine had worn when she had told him about the Angel of Music …

Raoul sat down slowly on the edge of the boat, feeling it tip under him slightly.

Who was this shade who possessed so many different personas? Angel of Music, Phantom of the Opera, composer, artiste … his own self-mocking moniker Angel of Death … was he any or all of them?

And how could one man be so gifted at disguising who – or what – he truly was?

Erik had not moved; he curled crumpled on the floor beside the organ, his fingers closed around the ornately carved supports, his eyes closed.

Meg saw Christine go forward to him in a rush, and at the unexpected sensation of her touch, Erik's eyes snapped open and his head came up.

Meg was not clear whether helpless joy or intense love registered first in Erik's eyes; he reached for her hand and a smile truer than any he had offered this past year lit his face.

"Christine …" Hoarse love sounded in his voice. "I didn't …" Christine withdrew her hand in confusion, and Meg saw doubt enter Erik's eyes.

"Christine, what …"

She held out his ring.

Meg saw Erik shrink before her eyes. He recoiled from Christine's touch, bringing one hand up to cover his face; and without quite being able to see through the half-hanging gloom, Meg was sure that he was crying. This quiet despair was somehow far worse than his violent fury of so short a time ago, and Christine appeared to feel it; silent tears were running down her face.

She held out his ring again, the innocent gold band catching the light of the candles in her hand. He reached out slowly, and took it from her. She stood, and turned as if to go; and he caught at her hand.

He rose slowly, unsteadily to his feet, suddenly seeming much less tall.

"Christine …" He reached out and almost touched her. "Oh, Christine, I …" He stopped abruptly, and the silence grew between them.

It was Christine who finally broke the silence. "Yes?"

At last he shook his head and looked away from her.

"It's nothing."

"No!" She reached out and caught at his hand, and Meg saw his head go back with pain at the unexpected contact. "Say it!"

He looked helplessly at her.

"I love you."

Christine bent her head, tousled curls falling around and obscuring her face. There was a long silence before she finally looked up and met his eyes. Her words, when she spoke, were agitated.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? I …" She shook her head angrily. "You never _told_ me! How was I to know?"

Erik made a small sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I had thought it was obvious."

Christine looked at him, and gave a sob. "Oh, Erik …" She pressed forward into his arms, and in the half-light, Meg saw Erik's eyes close in pain as he pressed a kiss to her hair.

They stood that way, a single statue in the comfortable darkness of the lair, for a long time. Then Erik gently extracted himself from her arms and carefully pushed her from him.

"Go on," he whispered. "He's waiting."

Christine hesitated, but Erik nodded and she fled with a single backwards look.

Erik remained standing exactly where she had left him for what seemed like a very long time. It was not until Raoul's voice filtered through the candles and sea mist and Christine made some reply, both inaudible, that he swayed and sank to the ground, his fingers grasping at something that was not there.

He gave a gasping sob, and at last the tears came; he curled in on himself, rocking with grief, his beautiful fingers twisting into fists. Inarticulate sobs escaped him; and Meg winced at this display that was so far removed from the Erik she knew.

She crept out from behind the organ and knelt beside him. He did not notice her; and even when she reached out to touch his arm, he was so exhausted by the evening's events that his reaction was not the violence it would once have been.

He shied away from her touch, raising one arm as a defence against her.

Hurt rushed through Meg, and his subsequent words proceeded to reduce her to a state of grief only slightly less extreme than his own.

"Go … leave me alone."

Meg closed her eyes on tears. "Oh, Erik, you are never alone … I'm always here for you."

"_You?_" He laughed shortly and, for the first time, he looked up at her. "How can you have the gall to look me in the eye and tell me that? You brought him here … you _showed him the way …_"

Meg gasped at the unfairness of it. "Erik, that isn't fair! I had no choice … you could have hurt her."

Something in Erik's eyes changed, and before Meg even had time to feel afraid, he was suddenly on top of her and his hands were closed viciously on her neck.

"Hurt her?" He twisted one hand brutally into her hair, forcing her to look at him. "_Hurt her?_ By God …"

Words apparently failed him. Meg whimpered, paralysed with fear.

"Do you know how easy it would be for me to snap your neck like a twig right now?" he asked, his voice low, savage with menace. His fingers splayed out across her throat, the yielding pliancy of her skin giving under his fingers. Meg could feel her breath coming fast, terror sweeping cold through her. In spite of the stories the girls told of him; in spite of the fact that she _knew_ he had murdered a man, and more in a past about which he would never talk; in spite of the way Christine had grown pale and thin under the shadow of his watchful eye, she had never feared him: never once seen him as dangerous.

But suddenly now, with his body looming above her own like a great black cat out of the darkness, with his beautiful, tender fingers that were always so full of music and magic pressing down hard on the soft flesh of her throat, she realised quite how dangerous was this man she loved.

And she began to weep.

Slowly, she felt Erik's grip loosen, and then, with a horrified movement of revulsion, his hand was gone altogether, and he was no longer looming above her, but cowering away from her into the dark, a wounded animal going to ground. And she heard him sob; and suddenly she knew what terrible damage had been done in the desolate emptiness of the labyrinth tonight.

"Erik," she whispered, trying to put down the fear he now lit in her mind, and heard the rustle of his cloak as he scrambled desperately backwards away from her, all grace and stature gone in his terrifying despair. She reached out, and he drew his cloak up around his head, hiding himself, cowering away from her.

"Don't touch me." That voice was not his: rough with pain, torn with desolation, it could never have belonged to the man who had once been called the Angel of Music.

"Oh, Erik." She drew closer and knelt before him, a black shape barely distinguishable from the rock behind him, muffled as he was in his thick black cloak, and she realised he was shaking from head to foot. He recoiled from her touch, shrinking back against the rock.

"Please …" For the first time in all the years she had known him, a note of terrified entreaty entered his voice. "Please …" The rest of his words faded away and, under the shroud of the cloak, she saw him lower his head to rest against the rock, and felt a sob shake his body.

She reached out and attempted to embrace him, desperate to comfort him, to soothe his anguish; but he started away from her touch like a half-broken colt. He staggered to his feet and backed away when she rose to join him; and as she raised her voice in entreaty – "_Erik, please_" – he was suddenly gone, swallowed up by the dark of the passage.

Meg was left alone with only the dripping of water down the cavern walls for company.

A/N – No, this is _not_ the end … I'm now taking bets on who – if anyone – will end happily. Any takers?


	8. Chapter VIII

A/N – To anyone familiar with Thomas Malory or T. H. White, this chapter owes a tremendous amount to their accounts of Lancelot and Elaine.

And goodness, all these requests for character death … We'll see. ;) One more chapter to go – and the books on the happy endings are still open …

Antoinette sat down wearily and let down her hair, rubbing numbly at her temples in an automatic effort to ease the inevitable headache. Meg, who had returned above ground numb and silent, and abruptly fainted into the arms of a crowd of hysterical ballet rats, was now safely ensconced in bed with little Rachel keeping a silent vigil at her side, tears occasionally sliding down her face into her tangle of dark hair.

Antoinette's other charge – rather older, accustomed to think he could take care of himself, and unused to being told otherwise – lay similarly unconscious in a room not too many doors away from Meg's.

His bedside, however, was unadorned by the weeping brunette whose presence might just have made the horrific evening worthwhile.

It had not been difficult to find Erik. Years of his acquaintance had taught Antoinette that he was always predictable when afraid or in pain: the feral instincts that life had instilled in him at an age when most children are still lisping their way through the juvenile catechism inevitably drove him downwards, and into darkness: much like the child he had never quite been, Antoinette suspected that he felt that if he could hide himself sufficiently deeply in the darkness, he could banish the world forever.

It had been rather more difficult to persuade him to hold a sensible conversation. The broken glass of what had once been an extremely fine crystal decanter that crunched under her feet as she approached, and the redness around his eyes that was only partly due to tears gave the truth to the slur of his voice as he suggested – in terms that under other circumstances would have won him a slap – that it would be better for all of them if Antoinette were to leave him to drink himself to death in peace and quiet.

But Antoinette's firmness – for all Erik's bravado, she had never doubted that somewhere deep in his subconscious he longed to be in the thrall of someone who could care for him enough to order him around – and the increasing dizziness that the brandy, coupled with the exhaustion of sporadic illness which Antoinette knew had plagued him ever since Christine had first begun to be seen with Raoul, appeared to be the spur that could stir Erik from his retreat.

Exhausted as Erik was by grief and extreme emotion, the sleeping pill that Antoinette had added to his coffee was probably unnecessary; but she was a woman who always prepared for contingencies.

Antoinette rose and glanced in at her daughter's door. Little Rachel still knelt at her bedside, feeding her rosary through her fingers; in the moonlight that poured in through the curtains, tears shone on her pale face.

Meg, her face half-obscured by golden curls, looked very young.

The lines that the past few months had sketched around her eyes and forehead were barely perceptible in the moonlight.

Antoinette closed the door and returned to the small music room within her private apartment. A roaring fire blazed in the grate, and in front of it sat a couple who were curled so closely together that their silhouette, cast by the flickering shadows of the fire, was not distinguishable as that of two people.

Christine looked up as the ballet mistress entered the door, and rose anxiously, reaching out a supplicatory hand even as the blanket Raoul had wrapped around her shoulders slipped away from her, exposing fragile white shoulders left bare by the wedding dress she still wore.

"Is he all right?" she whispered.

Raoul rose behind her and replaced the blanket around her shoulders, easing her back into the chair. She held on to his hand, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks again, and he settled a comforting, brotherly arm around her waist.

He glanced shrewdly at Antoinette, and through the exhaustion that marked itself plainly on his handsome face, she saw concern.

"Meg?"

Antoinette sat down in her own chair.

"Is uninjured. I think you had better tell me what happened."

Raoul and Christine left the Opera House much later that night, Raoul politely but in a tone that brooked no argument refusing Antoinette's offer of shelter for the night. Weekly letters – brief and bearing the hallmark of a man who had been taught that manners mattered, but whose faith in the doctrines of his youth had been severely shaken – informed Antoinette that they were well but keeping out of the public eye.

After that first ghastly night, when the police had left and the reporters drifted away to some newer story or more lurid crime scene, Antoinette sheltered Erik, perhaps ironically, in the flat he had once given her to protect her from the cruel eyes of a judgmental world, and which she had retained even after taking up nearly permanent residence at the Opera House.

Since that night, so far as she knew, he had not succumbed to the seductively sweet promise of oblivion that alcohol or narcotics offered, but his silent passivity made Antoinette fear that this most painful experience of first love might have broken him even as years of calculated cruelty had not.

It is hard to endure the rejection of one beloved; it is harder still coming fast on the heels of the faintest hope that life may not be as unforgiving as previously believed.

But Erik was – perhaps against his own inclination – stronger than his enemies would have him be. The day that Antoinette returned Ayesha – indignant at his desertion and determined to sulk until he should be deemed worthy of her forgiveness – she almost thought she saw him smile.

Ayesha's resentment lasted only as long as it took her to realise that her master seemed – not for the first time since Christine's advent in their lives – too distressed to recognise her animosity. She forgave him at once, as women always do when their dependent men need them, and set about attempts to divert him and drive the memory of the woman whom she had never liked much, anyway, from his mind.

Of Erik's visitors, Ayesha had always preferred Meg, with her gentle fingers and liberality with treats when Erik's back was turned. Christine was too thin, too nervous, and too high-pitched.

Not that anybody ever asked the cat.

Weeks passed, and gradually things returned to what passed for normal in the Giry house. Raoul and Christine were still not to be found among society; Meg remained pale, thin, and prone to fainting fits; and Erik could rarely be prompted to engage in a sustained conversation. It was a measure of how bad the time since _Don Juan_ had been that Antoinette was relieved by the progress they had made, although sometimes she doubted whether any of them would ever be happy again.

The day she entered the flat without announcement to find Erik seated in front of a mirror, staring doggedly at his unmasked reflection with hatred that looked like the worst kind of grief imprinted on his face, the image in the mirror made all the more hideous by the tears which slid steadily down his ill-formed cheeks, she felt as though all the breath had been snatched from her body.

She closed the door silently behind her; and she had only taken a few steps down the corridor before a scream of agonised rage that sounded not unlike the howl of a wounded animal followed the sound of glass shattering. The sounds of primal anguish dwindled to wrenching, hopeless sobs; and Antoinette finally understood why her piano had remained untouched since Erik's occupancy of her little flat.

As Erik gradually became aware of himself once more, his sense of honour began, slowly, to return to him. His honour had always, perhaps irrationally, been important to him: he had never hurt a woman, for the same reason that he had never killed a man who begged for mercy.

As a man so corrupted by vice, Erik's basic principles had always been the cornerstone to which he clung to prevent himself from tumbling into the abyss which yawned beneath him. And as that honour which had always been his most jealously guarded possession slowly ebbed back into his consciousness, he began to be aware of Meg again.

Whilst once he had threatened to tie her to a chair to induce her to be still for more than five minutes, she now sat pale and motionless in her chair, sewing badly, or staring at a book for hours at a time.

He felt guilty. He knew that he had hurt her, quite without meaning to; and it seemed to him that he ought to make what reparations he could.

It was so, about a month after the performance of _Don Juan Triumphant_, that he drew Meg aside after dinner and said to her, in the quaintly formal voice that he always adopted when uncomfortable about what he was about to say:

"I have not apologised for my conduct the night of _Don Juan_. I do so now. My behaviour to you was unpardonable."

She nodded once, and turned as if to go. His frustration broke through, and he caught at her arm.

"Oh, Meg, don't go! You seem so sad – tell me what I can do to make it up to you." He released her and stood, rubbing one arm with his left hand. "Tell me how I can make you happy."

She turned to look at him. Her face was very white.

"You could ask me to marry you," she said.

After all, he thought unhappily some hours later as he lay on his bed with his eyes closed, why not? He felt utterly empty. If he could make her happy by giving her something of so little value as his life, then how could he possibly justify denying her that wish?

His mind flew, as it so frequently did, back to Christine. He could not imagine feeling the all-consuming fire that was love and hatred and terror and the most exquisite sort of pain for anyone but her; never for a moment did he doubt that she was what novelists sentimentally termed _the one_.

But she was gone; out of Paris from what he could gather, and almost certainly married. Antoinette's kindness had spared him the news – he could have laughed at the trouble she took to protect his worthless feelings – but the truth was that she was gone from him in every conceivable way, and desperate, hopeless dreams that not even a brain as mad as his could longer credit were no reason to deny Meg the happiness she so deserved.

Antoinette was furious. When Meg told her the news, her lips thinned and went very white.

"Are you quite mad?" she asked, in the very quiet, tightly restrained voice that told Meg just how angry she was. "You do _realise_ that he does not love you?"

Meg remained stubbornly silent.

"That if you wed him, you will have a husband whose every other thought will be of another woman?"

"If you are going to be unreasonable –"

"_Unreasonable!_"

"He has asked me to marry him. I have accepted. That is all there is to say. We should like to have your blessing, but we shall go ahead whether you give it or not."

Antoinette was accustomed to her daughter's stubbornness, but this coldness was new to her: however much they had quarrelled in Meg's youth, they had always been close. This new Meg – so cold, so closed off – was a stranger to her.

"Where is he?" she asked.

It was in this interview with Erik that Antoinette lost her temper for the first time Meg could remember. Meg could hear her shouting at him long after the parlour door had closed behind them.

At last, her fury was spent, and she sat down roughly, with an unladylike sound of contempt that told Erik better than all her tempestuous anger how far the news had damaged her self-control.

"Very well," she said wearily. "Tell me why you have agreed to this truly outrageous scheme."

Erik, who had stood quite still and endured her rage with silent stoicism throughout, crossed the room and touched an ornamental angel on the mantelpiece.

"She says it is what she wants; that it will make her happy."

"And since when have you and I allowed children to decide what is best for them?"

He stroked one hand restlessly against the mantelpiece.

"I do not want her to suffer."

Antoinette looked at him, and suddenly she understood.

"As you do."

Only his eyes moved; his body remained rigidly still.

Antoinette persisted. "You want to prevent her from feeling what you do."

"Yes, damn you, if that is how you must have it. I _will not_ see her suffer because of me."

"Why do you suffer?" Antoinette asked at last. "What is it that gives you the greater pain – that Christine is not your wife, or that her love is given to another man?"

Erik's eyes closed; pain etched itself on his face.

"Don't."

"Would it have made you happy to have her as your wife knowing that she loved the Vicomte?"

"Stop."

"Then why on _earth_ do you think it will make my daughter happy to have your hand when it will never be accompanied by your heart?"

Erik covered his face with one hand and was silent. Then he lowered his hand and looked her in the eyes.

"How can I tell her no, Antoinette?"

Antoinette passed her hand over her face. When she looked up, her expression was blank.

"Very well," she said, very quietly. "Do what you feel you must."

A week passed, and Erik was doing his best. Nobody could accuse him of having anything but the purest intentions towards his fiancée: he knew that nothing could be crueller than to promise her his hand and then consciously withhold his heart. Therefore, he forced himself past his instinctive aversion to human contact to take her hand; to kiss her cheek; and taught himself to call her "darling". It felt crude and wrong, but he could see no way to make the situation better. Wounds, he reasoned, must be allowed to sting and burn through the application of antiseptic before they can heal.

Meg smiled a frozen, painted smile, and curled her hair. Inside, she felt sick every time Erik approached her: this man, so determined to please, so awkwardly unnatural in every touch, was not the gentle, tender mentor who had taught her to read and given her her first piano.

She hesitated outside the drawing room, fixing her smile. She glanced in the mirror that hung in the hall, and was satisfied by the porcelain doll's face that smiled determinedly back at her. She opened the door, and felt her heart wrench within her.

Erik was seated in the hard, high-backed chair he had adopted as his own. His eyes were closed; Ayesha lay curled at his feet like a contented spaniel. He was fast asleep, and in this moment of unobserved company, Meg could have wept for what they had both lost.

He stirred, and she shrank back; but a faint smile touched his lips, and Meg stepped forward, encouraged by this unconscious manifestation of happiness which had been so conspicuously absent from his face for so long. He shifted restlessly in his sleep; his hand stroked dreamily along the soft edge of the couch. And then his lips moved.

No sound emerged, but Meg recognised the name on his lips as surely as if he had spoken aloud.

_Christine_.

Meg stared, stricken. For the first time, she saw their life together: she eager and hopeful, he kind but distant … and always murmuring another woman's name in his sleep. Her love would mean nothing: nothing but a tie on his loyalty, kindness to her a duty. She would be a lead weight around his neck, a friend no longer as he felt bound to her.

Oh, he would be faithful; kind; constantly and suffocatingly solicitous: his peculiarly acute sense of honour and duty would not permit him a moment's respite in the task of being her husband. But his heart would not be touched; and in that moment, as the twilight sunlight streamed through the room to reflect like the fading of autumn to winter off the white of his mask, Meg felt that the isolation of losing her best friend could not possibly find any compensation from his constant companionship as a marble lover.

There came a knock at the door, and Erik started awake. He jumped as he caught sight of Meg, and an embarrassed smile spread over his face.

He gestured to the book that lay in his lap – a bound copy of _The Merchant of Venice_ – and said with charming frankness, "Shakespeare and warm afternoons are, I find, not overly conducive to concentration." As an afterthought, he added, "Darling."

Meg smiled uncomfortably – had it really been only months ago that they had spent whole weeks together without a moment's awkwardness? – and rose to answer the door.

Erik heard the door open, but neither Meg nor the visitor spoke, and, curious, he rose from his chair, dexterously removing his feet from Ayesha's deftly curled little body and passing into the hall.

The world spun; the very birds in the trees appeared to cease their incessant chattering in acknowledgment of a moment so fraught with intense emotion that the earth threatened to rend beneath his feet.

He was aware of Meg stepping towards him – had he paled, that his immediate reaction should distress her so? – but she remained peripheral, and intruded no more on his attention than Ayesha, who had followed him out of the way and was now arching her back and lashing her tail as she shrank back, hissing and digging her claws into the carpet.

At last he cleared his throat and stepped forward, ignoring – or perhaps not noticing – Meg's supplicating eyes on him.

"Christine."


	9. Chapter IX

A/N – I really don't know what to say. This is it; and, well, you'll see.

Many thanks to all who've reviewed:

EriksAngel2; Doomed Delight; Olethros; ashanti01; Maat; Mademoiselle Moi; gerfan; witchcat; Lavendar; Opera Cloak; lollie; Merinna; Nameless Quill; ITALIAN BELLA; Georgie, Sweet Georgia; aries-chica56; Macbeth's Lady; Christine Persephone; Starchild; aeipathy; Mary Jo Miller; YiyangYoung; TheOneAndOnlySkippy; DolphinAnimagus; EmailyGirl; Thornwitch; IChooseTheScorpion; Emanuelle; Cynical Romantic Lass; Erin-21; Saraqueenofallthings; Rayne; DreamsofBeauty; chicketieboo; Eilianu; Maya:D; Chat-tastic; geckogirl; Shiro; Prey; Little Sultana; Marianne Brandon; CrystalSaffron; sbkar; Cestruma; Pleading Eyes; Bumble0Bee; The Real Christine Daaé; peppermintoreo; jade;

and everyone who's offered help along the way. Love you all! Apologies to those who wanted a different ending; hope this will suffice. :)

Meg felt the world swim before her eyes as Erik and Christine's eyes met. Nothing had changed: the connection between them was still tangible. And when she stepped forward in a rush to embrace him, it felt right; and even as Meg took a step backwards to avoid the enormity of the realisation, she saw Erik tremble and push his former pupil away from him.

Christine, hurt and surprised, spoke his name; but he interrupted her, his eyes fixed firmly on a spot on the wall some three inches above her head.

"You have not yet heard our news, my dear," he said in the determinedly cheerful voice of one resolved to forestall painful speech from her. He reached for Meg, taking her hand and tucking it between both of his own as if as a talisman. "Meg and I are to be married later this spring."

Christine took a step back as though she had received a physical blow. She looked suddenly very much like a lost kitten; and even as she forced a smile and reached for Meg's hand, offering effusive congratulations, the expression at the back of her eyes that looked like betrayal was too much for Meg to bear as she felt Erik stand stiff and unmoving beside her.

Extracting her hand from Erik's, she excused herself.

"Erik, don't keep Christine standing out here in the hallway; show her into the drawing room. I will make some tea."

She hurried away, and, as she leaned her hot forehead against the cold surface of the kitchen wall, heard the drawing room door close softly behind Erik and Christine.

Inside the drawing room, Christine pushed a trembling hand through her hair, unaware of the momentary anguished longing in Erik's eyes as the dark curls tousled in the sunlight.

"I don't understand," she said at last, turning to look at him. "What is this?"

Erik's voice was empty. "This is exactly what it seems. I have asked Meg to marry me; she has accepted. The service will be in a little over six weeks' time."

Christine sat down slowly, folding her hands in her lap like a little girl at prayer. When she finally looked up to speak, she seemed to have grown even smaller: a lost kitten with tousled fur faced with an enormity too great to comprehend.

"_Why?_"

"Why?" In spite of himself, Erik felt anger stirring somewhere beneath the sickness in his heart. "You ask me _why_?"

Christine shrank back.

"Why I should want to marry Meg? Or is the question less specific – _why should I try to build a life for myself outside you?_" His anger was now genuine. "Ought I to have waited the rest of my life alone on the off-chance that you might change your mind?" He was aware that he was shouting, and did not try to stem the anger which offered some temporary shield against his noticing quite how beautiful she looked with the sun on her hair and tears in her eyes.

She had risen from her seat and stepped towards him as he spoke, hurt and disbelief showing in her face.

"How can you speak this way? When I have come to tell you that I –"

"_No._" Erik's voice changed abruptly: no vestige of the unique sweetness that so enthralled Christine remained in this skeleton tone, cold and dangerous. "I warn you. Do not say it." He drew a deep breath, trying to ignore the tears which had begun to slip silently down Christine's cheeks. "I am promised to another woman." His voice grew ragged. "Do not ask this of me.

Christine was silent for a long time.

"Do you love her?" she asked at last, in a very small voice.

"Yes." His voice faltered, and he lifted his chin and repeated determinedly, "Yes." He sighed, and spread his hands in an expansive gesture of defeat. "What is there about her not to love?"

Christine nodded. "What indeed." She had stopped crying, and her face was now very white: pure porcelain made all the paler by the shock of her dark hair. She stood unsteadily, and moved towards the door. "Please accept my congratulations," she said mechanically, fumbling for the door knob. "I do hope that you will be very happy. Please give Meg my love and apologise that I am not able to stay for tea …" Her voice broke and she fled, and Erik could hear her shoes clattering on the stone staircase as she rushed down the stairs.

Meg came in, so immediately that he knew she must have been listening at the door, and Erik knew a moment of utter despair. Just five minutes to recover himself; to put the image of Christine in tears caused by his own brutality from his mind and replace it with the reminder of what he owed to Meg; five minutes, and all would have been well. But he did not know how to face her now, when the only sound in his head was a single scream of anguish and his only desire to curl up somewhere in the darkness and hide his grief from the world.

But Meg did not give him time to respond to her presence: she rushed forward, seizing him by the lapels of his jacket, and shook him roughly, a tempestuous tabby cat with her fur standing up on end and in no mood to suffer opposition to her will.

"Go to her at once." In a frenzy of flurried activity, she rushed to Erik's drawer in the dresser and rummaged through it, ignoring his inarticulate protest, and retrieved a small jewellery box cased in shining blue velvet. She pushed it into his hands. "Oh, you surely didn't think I was unaware that you were still hoarding the wretched thing."

Erik spoke her name, reaching towards her, but she pushed him away.

"You belong with her." She gave a helpless little shrug and smiled wanly. "Do you think I don't know that?"

Erik was silent, and Meg pushed him gently towards the door.

"Go on." She nodded. "Before she walks too far."

Erik hesitated a moment more, the dawn of a smile beginning on his face; then he made for the door. As he reached the door, he paused, and turned back to Meg. He took a step towards her, and leaned forward to kiss her; and for the first time, his lips were warm against her cheek.

His whispered "Thank you" seemed to fill the flat even after he had disappeared down the stairs at a run.

Meg, watching from a high window, saw Erik emerge from the building into the sunlight, and, glancing briefly up and down the street, set off after Christine.

Caught up in her misery, Christine did not hear Erik coming up behind her. Only when he laid a hand on her shoulder – was this the first time he had ever initiated contact between them? wondered Meg – did she turn, startled, to face him. She opened her mouth to speak, but Erik, now gripping both of her shoulders, stopped her words by kissing her.

Meg turned away from the window to see her mother standing in the doorway. She opened her mouth to speak and found that she could not. The only word she could form was "Mother …" in a small voice that sounded like the mewling of a kitten.

Antoinette nodded, forestalling further words, and came towards her; Meg stepped forward into her mother's arms, and her reserve broke. Antoinette embraced her daughter as tears threatened to shake apart her body, and pressed her cheek into the soft gold of Meg's hair.

Through the window, Erik could be seen slipping a ring onto Christine's finger, so small as to be invisible until the sun caught the metal and flared like the opening of a daisy in the first gentle sunlight of spring.

Meg saw very little of Erik over the next few weeks. When he did come to visit – and he was scrupulous about keeping his accustomed visiting times, determined, Meg suspected, not to neglect his old friends – he was restrained, as though he feared to reveal the depths of the dizzying joy that Meg saw in him whenever he and Christine were together. It was a comfort, if one that felt rather like an ache in her chest, to see him so happy again; and if it tore Meg's heart to see how beautiful Christine looked in her dazzlingly white wedding dress, she never admitted it to anybody.

The day of the wedding dawned bright and warm, and Meg spent the morning with Christine, her mother having gone to help Erik. She helped Christine's little maid to tame her unmanageable curls, and stroked her friend's back when a combination of nerves and her too-tight corset conspired to send her into a panic.

It was on this morning at Christine's little flat – which was in a state of absolute chaos, filled with flowers and jewellery and other small presents from her friends at the Opéra, including two new rag dolls and a furry toy cat which Christine's own cat, a small white ball of fluff which Erik had bought for her the previous week, was eyeing suspiciously – that Meg saw Raoul for the first time since the events at the Opéra.

He came in dressed for the wedding, having agreed to give Christine away in the absence of her father, and Meg watched with pity stirring in her heart as she saw his step falter at the sight of the woman who had once promised to marry him resplendent in dazzling white. He recovered himself swiftly, and came forward to kiss her hand; he was correct in every way in his behaviour towards her, and he and Christine seemed easy together, even if Meg could see concern in her friend's eyes as she asked after his health. It was true, she thought, he looked thinner and his eyes were circled with dark marks which suggested a lack of sleep. He brushed off her concern lightly, citing some small trouble on his estates as the reason for his obvious tiredness; but it was clear that Christine was not fooled, and she stroked his hand gently as he escorted her out to his carriage.

Meg was aware of Raoul throughout the entire service: his determinedly fixed smile, his too-hearty enthusiasm when greeting her mother and the priest; and perhaps worst of all, the expression which shivered over his face like the shifting of autumn leaves when Erik lifted Christine's veil and bent to kiss her chastely on the lips, touching one hand to her hair. It was a momentary lapse in his demeanour, and the smile returned even more brightly fixed as soon as Christine's attention returned to the congregation, but one that spoke volumes of the pain concealed beneath blonde hair and a face that would have pleased Apollo.

They stood together as the wedding carriage departed, waving with determined smiles until the carriage rounded a bend in the road and disappeared from view. Then, as Antoinette concluded her conversation with the priest and stepped forward to take Meg home, Raoul turned to Meg and took her hand.

"I have not extended my sympathy to you," he said gently. "I know what you, too, have lost today; but I am all too aware of the insignificance of words at such a time." Meg swallowed hard, biting down on tears, and he smiled sadly. "You will be in my prayers." He raised her hand to his lips, and ushered her gently back to her mother.

As he walked away from them, Meg thought that she had never seen anyone look so alone.

Raoul asked Meg to marry him the next week, and she accepted. Since Erik and Christine's wedding, they had huddled together like two children trying to make sense of an impossibility. They had comforted each other; and it seemed appropriate that these two, each so in love with another person, should rebuild their lives together.

Erik and Christine came at once upon reception of the news. Erik raged and threatened; Christine begged Meg to reconsider. Meg remained stoically calm, but in spite of her courtesy, which seemed to have become consciously pronounced, she remained immovable. They went away dejected, guilt-stricken and shocked by the pale, coldly polite little creature they had found.

Antoinette only nodded when Meg told her passively, without excitement, that she was to be married to one of the richest men in Paris.

"Very well," she said softly, and kissed her daughter, and held her to her for a moment.

Meg only went back to the Opéra once in the run-up to her wedding, to make the managers aware that she did not intend to return for the next season. The _corps_ swarmed around her with excited delight, Christine's drama forgotten in the more immediate romance of their own Meg and the most handsome young man to be seen in the Opéra in many years.

Only Rachel seemed slightly subdued: she kissed Meg and stroked her hair.

"I will miss you," she said quietly.

Meg and Raoul married very quietly early the next year. Erik and Christine attended, both stricken with guilt, and seemed not to know what to say at the reception afterwards.

In their married life, Raoul and Meg did not see much of Erik and Christine. They attended all of Christine's opening nights, and sent flowers; but it was rare that they went backstage after a performance, and although Christine frequently invited them to dinner, Raoul usually discovered an old acquaintance whose invitation for the same night he could not neglect. They did go to dinner once at the quiet little house outside Paris that Erik and Christine had purchased: it was a strained affair, and they left early after Meg pleaded a headache with a promise to return the invitation which all four of them knew would never be honoured.

Meg never danced again after _Don Juan Triumphant_. Raoul did not pressure her to explain. One day he came across her in her bedroom practising steps he dimly remembered from a production of _Coppelia_. Her face was rigid, her movements precise and stiff. He watched her for a moment, then quietly closed the door and went away.

Meg learned to sew, and made many friends among the wives of Raoul's friends and acquaintances. She became a mother figure to the young aristocratic women who had been married young and were afraid of the new life threatening to open up before them: like her mother, she was a silent promise of support to any young woman in need. She became actively involved in several charities around Paris, and spent much of her time on schemes for poor relief.

It had been said for generations that if a Chagny bride did not conceive within the first year, there would be no children. There were no children in the first year; nor in the succeeding years.

Meg was not unhappy in her life. She loved Raoul as he loved her: with tenderly protective love designed to keep the other from hurt.

And if, like another man she had once cared for, he occasionally spoke another woman's name in his sleep, she did not mind.

Dreams are for the blissful oblivion of sleep.

- FIN -


End file.
